Lessons From The Old Year

This year I learned that I really am a good cook . . . when I focus. I never used to buy into the idea that food could be made “with love”; that’s not an ingredient, it’s an emotion. But cooking with love includes cooking intentionally, not just throwing things into a pot or a pan and calling it dinner. I learned that even when I had only three or four ingredients to put toward a meal, they only tasted good when I focused my attention on the end result – tasted and planned and revised and served in a nice dish, as if my own family was “company.” I learned to treat my family like welcome guests at the table, not as recipients of a motherly chore.

This year I learned that letting go is hard, and necessary. I came across the term “helicopter parent,” and spent a lot of time trying to figure out what altitude was acceptable. A third of the time, I listened to myself nag the Boy about homework each and every time I got a homework alert; I graphed and charted missing assignments and spent sleepless nights over failing grades and what that would mean for his chances of becoming a productive adult. Another third of the time, I left lists of things to do on the table and walked away – hands off: he’d do the assignments or not, because I wasn’t going to relive ninth grade. I was more like a “satellite parent,” tracking, collecting data, but not interfering. I didn’t get any more sleep that way. And finally, the rest of the time, I pored over stacks of How to Parent a Teenager (Who Has ADHD, By the Way) books, trying to find some strategy, some operational plan to get through these high school years. And what those books told me was that high school sucks, that some teens are more difficult than others, and that there is no plan. There’s just your kid, who is unique. I learned that The Serenity Prayer applies to parenting.

I learned that sometimes the way God gets you to move to the next step, even the next level, is to allow things to get so intolerable, so excruciatingly dreadful, that all you can do is go. It’s like being kicked out of an airplane by a big Heavenly boot and hoping desperately that your parachute will open. I’ve learned that that first step is a doozy.

I learned that my daughter does not like dresses – and I’m okay with that. I learned that my middle son has a talent for cooking. I learned that my oldest, my most difficult child at the moment, has a knack for dealing with the elderly and making them feel special.

This year I learned that two boats tethered together may drift apart, but will never separate completely. No matter how busy, stressed, or distracted Rev and I get, his hand is still there when I reach out with mine.

Important lessons, all of them, some learned the hard way. Let’s hope they stick for 2012.