" I hate you. YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

Either due to comical hilarity or that fact that I am enough anti type A personality for any acquaintance circle, it seems that I am the only non type A person in my circle. I am not naturally logical or linear.  In fact, if type A personality were the gauge to evaluate everyone, I think I'd be labeled alphabet soup. I have simmered down over the years and learned a coping trick or 12; but I am still someone who feels the knee jerk reaction to REACT. 

Reactions get nasty really fast. You assume the worst in people, burn bridges that don't need burned, and ruin good things. I've ruined some important moments and people in my life due to reacting. Thankfully, I've learned to "practice the pause."

Lemme explain. When I am tempted to react and get mad or upset, instead of whipping out my dictionary of destructive and cruel words du jour, I pause. I wait. Literal . I still want to yell. I want to allow myself to wallow in the pity puddle and complain. I want to feel all the emotions, take everything personally, read between all the lines that are and aren't there. When I am overly tired I want to cry, scream, and throw things that will explode into spectacular messes that I have zero intention of cleaning. I want to harbor my inner crazy woman who struts like she just walked out of the salon with hair and nails head turn worthy while random explosions fire off behind me making no sense like a power rangers episode.... but .... I wait. In all actuality, I've never thrown a single thing ever when I was upset, but the idea that it might make me feel better, still crosses my brain. 

PAUSE.

I take a breath. I wait and allow people to show me who they are. I allow them the space to explain and react. I give them the ability to earn either the benefit of doubt or walk of shame. People will always show you who they are. The truth will always come out. It is not my job to "show" other people who they are. If you wait long enough, everything about other people and their intentions surfaces. 

Unfortunately, allowing people to show you who they are, takes time. Allowing other people to earn their own karma takes time. I like to know that I am right. I truly do NOT like to be embarrassed or proved wrong. I don't handle criticism well. I like for things to be handled. I prefer things to have an outcome that I can predict. Life, as I’ve learned, does not in fact work that way. You can’t control the way life comes at you. You can plan and hope and organize.You can make back up plans for your back up plans, and life will shift like a rock slide. This is when I am forced to practice the pause more than any other time. If I react- I might not be operating wth the whole picture. Often my reaction is due to me NOT have a clear view of all the facts. Imagine you are in an airplane and the airplane has emergency lights going off, oxygen masks flop down.... and you are traveling with your children. If you react and start putting the mask on your children first, you could lose consciousness and not be able to adequately care for them. Instead you must pause. You must wait and not fall victim to reacting to your urge to cover them first. YOU need to put on your own mask. Then and only then can you care for your children with a safe and clear head.

In too many car accidents, literal or life wise, people like to blame the other person. No one wants to be the one at fault. We all want to inherently yell at the other person as the scapegoat for our misfortune.

When life throws lemon, cancer, or brokenness in our direction, we want to yell. "YOU did this to me!" How dare the universe throw us into a pit of fear or despair . "This isn't in my plan!?" Divorce, death, destruction, misfortune, and chaos all want us to react. In our knee jerk reaction we might break someone past what they can handle. We might scar them. I believe 

if we just WAIT and PAUSE we will end up wherever we are supposed to be. I think of the reacting as overcorrecting a car in the moment of a slide, if causes far more harm than good to overreact and overcorrect. 

Reactions and overreactions do not bring out the best in most people.

Learn to practice the pause.

My cup is empty ...

Today I confess that my cup is empty. I confess that after a week of being touched, snuggled, and leaned against by my almost 10 year old- I am touched out. My kind and brilliant man child is literally doing nothing wrong but asking for his relationship bank to be filled. He isn’t demanding. He isn’t rude. He is kind and meek. His yearning for my attention is almost palpable. He wants to be loved and take care of me. He wants to snuggle me. He attempts to put his hand on my face and tell me, “You’re pretty momma,”  and “I love you.” He wants to talk to me and tell me about his day. He wants to look at me and share his life experiences and joy. And I have listened. I have smiled and laughed at the good things. I have asked questions and interacted. And yet, I feel like I haven’t absorbed his attention because I have been so overwhelmed. He is absolutely deserving of my attention. Yet, here I am, knowing I haven’t been the mom he needed. I sit feeling like I have more “uh huh,” “ yeah,” and”okay,” answers than I should have.

I know I have interacted. But I haven’t seen him or his needs for all that they truly are.
Yesterday I raised my voice too loudly when he wanted to lean and crawl in my lap as I was attempting to get up. He didn’t know I was getting up. I didn’t know what he needed in the grand scheme of things.

Tonight my sweet ginger girl didn’t get the best version of me. She got the mom who hummed instead of sang. She got the momma who was frustrated and tired. She got the momma that I pray NOT to be.
Tired. Overwhelmed. Sad. Cranky. And checked out.
She didn’t do a single thing wrong. She wasn’t overly fussy. She wasn’t overly needy. She reached for me. She needed me. She wanted to touch my face and kiss my lips. She wanted to snuggle. She wanted to nurse. She wanted to play with my hair and laugh in my face with the sheer contentment of knowing she is safe and loved. In fact - if I pull back from the mental snapshot and see the bigger landscape view of the picture, it’s really amazing and beautiful. But somehow my focus is pulled in too tightly on the shot and alll I can see is overwhelm, tired, and lack of energy.

Tonight I sit on my bed knowing that I was not the mom I want to be.
Tonight I am drowning in feeling like I have failed them both.
I am very aware that I am not, have not, and can not be the mom I typically put effort into being.
My cup is empty.

The problem with an empty cup is that you can’t pour from it. I can not give more of myself to my children when my cup is empty. I can’t shower them with strength and praise when I am broken and aware of all the ways I am tripped up and failing.

Tonight I need held by someone who isn’t 4 foot tall or shorter. I need someone who is content not talking to me, and to share my space. I don’t want to be “mom.” I want to be Angel. I want to be the person that someone else makes laugh and thinks that they enjoy my presence without me needing to do anything. I need my cup filled. I need to looked  and not be valued for the things I can do and the basic needs of food, shelter, and safety to rest exclusively on my shoulders.

I want loud music.
I want laughter.
I want to be more than just mom.

But instead, I sit feeling like a failure...
 not because my children aren’t fed, warm, safe, and cared for, but rather because you can’t pour from an empty cup..

Tonight as I sit and recollect my day, the highlight was the tiny moment I sat with a tiny boy in my lap and read him a Barney book. It was the most calm and most quiet aspect of my whole day. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t planning. I was sitting oblivious to the rest of the world- enjoying the stillness of the moment. Because even in my overwhelm and overstimulated...
love found me.

Tomorrow I will refill my cup because you can’t pour from an empty cup.