I was hiding in plain sight
Rising up from the surface
To fly into the light, into the light..."
–Rush, Sweet Miracle
That doesn't mean we don't care about our children. That we don't love them. Of course we do. And of course we ask, "What's wrong, sweetie?" Because we want to be there for them, to resolve whatever angst might be strangling them. Regardless of their age.
Because pre-coronavirus, they were usually out of the house more during the day, especially if you have school-age kids like we do. They were around a lot more people during, friends and teachers, and if they were in any extracurricular activities after school they were around even more kids and adults. Being exposed to life lessons and positive and negative stressors all around. Life as we knew it.
Decades earlier, my mom and dad were supportive and loving parents, and yet, I never felt comfortable sharing the turmoil inside me that grew dramatically during my teenage years. As a child, part of my heart had collapsed like a star turned black hole, sucking the light from my eyes no matter how hard I tried to stay positive. As my awareness of the world around me, and inside me, grew, and my reactions to that awareness, the black hole's gravity expanded. Although I just wanted to be liked, I didn't like myself much, and those feelings of unworthiness, vulnerability and weakness only isolated me more. Rife with anxiety and panic attacks, I never shared any of it with my parents. They did notice something was wrong, and they did ask, but I never talked about it. So they never pressed. Until one day at the end of my senior year in high school the black hole burst open. Decades later light, so much light.
They had no idea. Didn't really want to have any idea, which again, didn't mean they didn't love me and want to offer me support. They just wanted me to be happy. And normal. God knows they had their own collapsed stars haunting the skies of their adulting lives.
It's been six months now since COVID-19 changed our lives forever. And is still changing them. Out there is a pandemic, economic devastation, divisive political polarity, racial injustice, social unrest and more. In here are families like ours, locked down together, fearful of the future, limited in what we can do, distance learning for school, camping together for vacations, no other extracurricular activities, missing distant family and friends, and "podding" with other families to stay safe and virus free and to have some social interaction in so much social isolation. Researcher Dr. Brené Brown calls this Day 2, the messy middle -- the point of no return.
We are all in the messy middle now and we have no choice but to continue going through it. Hopefully we'll all come out in Day 3 better for it. And thankfully these days as parents, there are many more of us who do want to know when are children are going through something difficult. Who empower our children to be able to articulate the emotional and psychological discomfort they're experiencing. Who encourage them to safely share, without judgement, while we listen and provide parental counsel. And who are so proud of them when they come up with their own resilient ideas of what they need to adapt and thrive.
We are with them all the time, and no matter what we're going through as adults today, we want to save them from adulting doom, their own potential black hole implosions. We only want their stars to shine through their eyes and in our skies.
Other "Days of Coronavirus" posts:
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