The Lens:
I am about my wits end with COVID. On this morning, I had a 9:00am “meeting” with my principal. (I put meeting in quotes because meetings are nothing like they used to be roughly 5 months ago.) I was struggling with how best to teach my incoming 1st graders remotely and had asked for the meeting to run my thoughts by her.
It was the last official week of summer, though I started working in earnest a few weeks before. I got up later than I wanted, lingered over my coffee and the news little too long. 9:00am was becoming increasingly closer. I knew I was running out of time and had to get going. I can’t stand being late, yet I was setting myself up for it. No one to blame but myself. (insert self-loathing)
My shower – usually my ease into the day routine – was rushed. I employed my speed hair dry routine – not usually good if I want a decent hair day. A quick blow dry to get the heavy water out of my hair. I abandon hair drying for the moment to iron my shirt, giving my hair a chance for some time-saving air drying.
Tick tock, tick tock. I have about 8 minutes to go. I am getting more and more stressed seeing I will not be able to finish properly getting ready by meeting time – I called this meeting, I should be on time. Ok, If I just get the blow drying done, my hair should be presentable enough for the meeting. I can flat iron later.
I’ve got six minutes to go before it occurs to me, this is just a phone call. No face-to-face Zoom. (insert scream) I slow down. Not happy I won’t be ready but relieved no one will know but me.
At 9:01, my phone pings – a message from my principal saying she is tied up and will call me in a few. “No worries,” I respond. (insert huge exhale of the way-too-much self-inflicted stress for this early in the day) In the amount of time it takes her to call, I am able to flat iron my hair and make my bed. I am now properly, albeit on the late side, ready for the day.
Once the call is over, I sit down for a few minutes to relax my nerves. At about 9:27am, my youngest son comes somewhat hurriedly upstairs in a backward baseball cap, t-shirt and pajama bottoms. It is clear to me he had just gotten up. He grabbed a cup of coffee and brought it in the back room. He trotted downstairs and came back with his computer, went in the room, closed the door, and started his Zoom call at 9:30.
The thing is, even though I could have been wearing a towel – or nothing at all – for my meeting, I would have been highly uncomfortable, even upset, being less than put together. Obviously, my son doesn’t share that proclivity.
How could my son and I be so different? (In this instance, why can’t I be more like that??)
The Refraction:
My youngest sister is adopted. She became a part of our family at 6 years old, so it was always known she was adopted. When a friend was in the process of adopting a child, she asked me if I felt differently about my youngest sister than I did about my biological sisters. I said, “No, she is my sister.” I added, with her, though, it was harder to accept her for who she was, something I hadn’t realized (or considered) until I had children of my own. I told my friend her soon to be daughter would probably do things and she would think, “why are you doing that?” or “that is really annoying,” when it might be very clear why she was doing it if she was your biological child.
What the hell are you talking about, you might think. I did explain further . . . Example: my youngest sister is a complete night owl. She would easily be up until 1:00am every night. Nobody in my family was a night owl. Even though my sister was quiet as a mouse, the lights would be on and it would drive my mother nuts. She never understood why she just wouldn’t go to bed earlier.
Fast forward to my youngest son – who is a complete night owl. While he clearly did not get that from me, I can clearly see he got it from his night owl father. When we got married, my husband’s late nights drove me nuts. I would wake up at 1:00am to see I was alone in bed and the light still on. I’d get up, express exasperatedly my displeasure, and go back to bed.
When it came to my son, like my mother, his late nights drove me nuts. Unlike my mother, I was much more accepting. I had already been putting up with it for years with his father. It was annoying as hell, sure. But I understood it. I took exception, not because he was up, but because he needed his sleep for school the next day. Now that he is an adult and I don’t worry about him getting up for school, I never get up and tell him to go to bed.
My initial story is just another difference I understand – my need to be ready to greet the day, and my son’s lackadaisical approach to same thing. He is his father’s son.
We all have people who come and stay (or come and go) in our lives. It is really hard to understand what they do sometimes. But it is worth remembering that just because you don’t get it, there isn’t something there to be gotten. That knowledge may not make the trait less irritating, especially when the person lives with you, but it may help in accepting it. It might also help when someone complains about your little “quirks.” You can just say, “If you knew my dad, it would all make sense.”