Mother's Day Thoughts

It's nearly a year since I posted here... and yet once again, I return for purely selfish reasons!

I'm preparing to give a talk last-minute and I need a quick and easy way to organize my thoughts. Hence... the blog.

Today is Mother's Day. Today I have agreed to give a short talk about a way that I've seen my Mother change gracefully over time - and how that has impacted my life.

It should be easy! This should take me about 5 minutes. (If it seems surprising that I say that, know that I wrote my 90 page thesis in less than 2 days, and I won a public speaking award in college.) I should have had this thing done and finished days ago. And yet... here I am, in a fast food restaurant (where I can be "alone") cramming for my final, once again. (Good thing I always passed!)

....But I'm still totally nervous, because it's 9AM and I now have 1/2 an hour left to organize my thoughts and finish this thing. GAH!!!!!

**Breathe, breathe, calm, calm.**

I feel that this should also be easy because my Mom and I share a history of growth and spiritual discovery together. In fact, I plan to open by discussing that, and how that's led to my topic: Patience. Yet, here I am blocked. There has been SO MUCH going on in my life lately -- so much change, responsibility, growth, stress, growth -- that I'm in a bit of a fog and can't clearly see what I know is there, the ideas floating right in front of my consciousness but clouded over by high cortizone levels and too much sugar. The best cure, for me, has always been to default to stream-of-consciousness writings. And since typing is much faster than longhand, here I am, sitting in McDonalds typing into Blogger. (With an iced latte by my side. I heart coffee!)

And so... let me begin at the beginning, with where my notes started and stopped a few days ago when I began this process. Here it begins....

A Graceful Change in Mom and How It's Impacted My Life

My mother has been working on a process of spiritual growth and development for my entire life. This particular journey began for her several years before I was born, when she hit her personal rock bottom, made some revelations and changes in her life, and began a life-long quest for peace, serenity, and acceptance for herself and everyone around her.

It's something we've always shared. She was fresh into her journey when I was little. I've always found that energy very inspiring, in her or anyone -- those first months and years after someone makes a spiritual leap and the growth and activities that come with it.

I've been with her on her journey as her situation has changed, through really hard times and really good ones. I've seen the journey become stale and old (as it does for us all - it's part of the process) - and I've rejoiced in the rejuvenation of the journey, such as she and I have both experienced since joining this brilliant community here at Unity of Loudoun County.

So to pick one aspect of change in Mom seemed, at first, a daunting one, as I've been so close to forest it's hard to see the individual trees. It's even harder because, as her daughter and closest relative, I've got branches on more than one of those trees! My own forest is populated by seedings from the glorious wilderness of Mom's being. Our journeys are so closely connected. We share the same clouds and rain and the same life-giving sunshine. To take the analogy a step further: Two trees may grow to great heights from the ground, but to each other they always seem just a few feet apart.

(I can already tell I'm going to cry when I give this talk.)

Going through the most prominent colors of the forest, it occured to me that there is a recurring theme. Upon closer inspection, the branches and trunks of many of the different trees share a similar sap. It has to distinct tastes: That of patience with others, and patience with herself.

Patience is, in fact, that area in which I have witnessed the greatest graceful change within my Mother's life.

[I've been typing for 18 minutes and I'm half done. Yay! I think I'm going to have to literally carry my laptop up to the stand and read this verbatim. My public speaking professor would be horrified. ;]

When I look back, I am surprised to realize just how impatient Mom was while I was growing up. In retrospect I am surprised that I'm surprised! She was has undiagnosed ADHD for most of that time. She was always VERY hard on herself. She was always concerned with what other people might think. She and my Dad were both black sheep, and she never herself (or me) forget it.

(One great thing about having a Mom with ADHD, is she's ground me one minute, and forget in the next. 2-week groundings lasted about 2 days at the most. ;)

In one famous family incident, Mom asked me to clean my room. To me, my room was always supposed to be My Space. MINE. She should have no jurisdiction there. I mean, as long as there wasn't rotting trash or squirrels or something. I should have the right to determine my own level of clutter-comfort. But Mom never saw it that way. So this one day, I cleaned up my room beautifully - everything in it's place, dusted and everything. But I purposefully left one kleenex on the floor. One kleenex, to pretend I'd missed. Just to see what would happen.

(Sigh) Mom totally blew her top when she saw that kleenex. I, offended that my work wasn't good enough despite one little tissue, fought back. By the next day I snuck out of being grounded again. ;) But for two tense hours we barely spoke to each other without raised voices or tears.

When I look back on this incident, I come to two substantial realizations. The first one is that Mom would NEVER do that today. It is no longer in her being to be like that. The second is that what I was really trying to do with that incident, which I did successfully, was to prove that Mom's obsession with cleanliness had to do with herself and had almost nothing to do with me. Subconsciously, she, like thousands of parents, probably viewed me as an area of her life in which she could control what others perception of her must be. Or rather, what she thought it must be. And her thoughts on that weren't good. And she had no patience for herself in this regard.

As we've both matured over the years, there has been a subtle shift in Mom. I can see that, as she's learned to be patient with herself, she's been more patient with me. As she's worked to learn - not just to hear and know but to learn, in her bones - that she is a whole and complete child of God just as she is, she's slowly stopped being so concerned with what her dysfunctional family thinks about her, what her friends think about her, what I think about her. Old habits die hard and I can tell you right now, as I speak, her wheels are probably turning pretty fast! But she knows how to divert that cart off to the side and not let her ego usurp her perceptions.

And I realize that, as all of this has occurred, it's not that Mom learned to be more patient with me. That thought never felt right to me. She's always loved me, unconditionally, with a divine love, so how can her losses of patience with me be about me?

Ten years ago, we decided we could never live together ever again! We were fed up. And yet, we didn't love each other any less than we do now. We just had less patience with ourselves.

Now we've lived together for over 3 years, for the last 2 months of those in a very tight space. And yes, she occasionally loses her patience with me, and I with her. But we don't treat those times as affronts. Rather, they are alarm bells that we head with respect and, dare I say, some semblance of patience.

As my Mom has grown more patient with herself, she has mirrored that patience onto the people and situations around her. And that is a graceful change that I can say I have witnessed and experienced with joy in my heart. I love you Mom!