Considering everyone in my household has been sick a minimum of once within the past month and a half its a miracle I haven't gotten sick until now. Poor little Caroline is on her third round! But want in on a secret? I've actually been hoping to get sick sooner rather than later (I knew it was highly improbable that it would all together miss me.) because now is a convenient time--as far as sickness ever being convenient goes--and there are a lot of inconvenient times coming up: pageant season, and right after that AP tests, and then *gasp* graduation and my last summer before college.
The first night I started to feel really bad was the night before my first day going back to school from a 3-day weekend. I ranted to Mom, "I know I understand this Stats but I can't think clearly enough to finish the homework and I don't want to do terribly on the test because I just can't think straight and there are quizzes in Gov tomorrow I haven't done the reading for and at the end of the day I know grades don't really matter anymore, I don't need to be concerned unless I'm getting lower than B's, and something that's been really great about this year and having grades not matter is that I've really been able to focus on enjoying learning and having what I've learned be my self-imposed measure because I want to learn rather than just freaking about grades 24/7, and I'm into BYU so I don't even have to worry about being wait-listed, but the perfectionist side of me is still just freaking out and feels like everything needs to be done and done neatly and checked off for me to relax, but I know that with all of our sicknesses the common theme has just been fatigue and we've needed a lot of rest, so I know my priority needs to be just calming down and letting myself rest but there's a part of me that is just so opposed to giving myself permission to do that until I have all the i's dotted and t's crossed in every other area of my life! And I thought getting into college was supposed to be the hard part, why is my head still spinning with 'What if?'s about roommates and dorms and space and classes?"
So awesome thing #1 about my mom-She has major talent in the Deciphering Grace's Rants arena.
And awesome thing #2 about my mom-I'll go on a vent like that, she'll take a beat to let me catch my breath, and then she'll say something short and sweet that addresses every single part of it. In this case, it was, "I think often times we start to stress when we feel ourselves going downhill. Your body can feel you're going downhill." TRUE. STATEMENT. Made it all make sense to me, and helped me even more to give myself permission to stop stressing because I was in fact going to be down and out for a bit.
Today both Caroline and I had high fevers and were pretty much useless (up to today I've been trying to get up and do homework and clean as much as I can), and Mommy just took care of us on top of shuttling Matt and planning his birthday bash (since we had to cancel his due to him being sick) and who knows what else. She never once acted frustrated or stressed when we were complaining about how dead we felt, or asked her to bring us something to eat, or pitifully yelled out the latest temperature report to her.
Awesome thing #3 about my mom-You know my worries about college I mentioned earlier? Those aren't new, I've been having freak-outs about college since at least November. She always brings a voice of compassionate reason to my frantic thoughts. Over Thanksgiving break I had a midnight longer-than-usual near panic attack about things, and somehow she walked out of her room just as I was stumbling out of mine to go to the kitchen to find anything to do to keep me breathing. She sat up for at least an hour with me, re-researching all of the meal plans and dorm options with me, calming my entirely irrational fears.
The awesome things about her go on and on, some of them I'm not even comfortable sharing publicly (right now. . . . that'll be a deep post when/if it happens). But its getting late and I want to shower while I have a low enough fever to stand and see straight at the same time, so I'll wrap this up.
Most of my life I've clashed with my mom, but this school year we are growing so close. She's a fantastic listener. She listens to not just my words, but my heart. She has taught me respect through her actions. Man, she is the best at teaching by example. The more clearly I see her, as a person rather than just my mom, the more I think she's a saint. Mom, I'm sorry it took me this long to figure that out.
For all of you reading this and thinking, "Gosh, well THIS isn't the most generic post in the world," or "She's not telling the whole story, everyone has a bad side," I'll say, yes, my mom isn't perfect. I remember talking with one of my friend's moms in middle school and really trying to be diplomatic when she commented, "I just can't see your mom ever yelling." Oh boy, that was a mental eye-roll. Yes, my mom yells sometimes, she loses her temper, she gets tired and snappy. Hopefully she doesn't mind me spilling the beans. :)
But really, she's only a human doing something superhuman.
I challenge you to take a second look at your mom, as a person.
Grace
P.S.-And the flaws you see in this post are probably due to her not editing it with me, I wanted it to be a surprise. :)
The first night I started to feel really bad was the night before my first day going back to school from a 3-day weekend. I ranted to Mom, "I know I understand this Stats but I can't think clearly enough to finish the homework and I don't want to do terribly on the test because I just can't think straight and there are quizzes in Gov tomorrow I haven't done the reading for and at the end of the day I know grades don't really matter anymore, I don't need to be concerned unless I'm getting lower than B's, and something that's been really great about this year and having grades not matter is that I've really been able to focus on enjoying learning and having what I've learned be my self-imposed measure because I want to learn rather than just freaking about grades 24/7, and I'm into BYU so I don't even have to worry about being wait-listed, but the perfectionist side of me is still just freaking out and feels like everything needs to be done and done neatly and checked off for me to relax, but I know that with all of our sicknesses the common theme has just been fatigue and we've needed a lot of rest, so I know my priority needs to be just calming down and letting myself rest but there's a part of me that is just so opposed to giving myself permission to do that until I have all the i's dotted and t's crossed in every other area of my life! And I thought getting into college was supposed to be the hard part, why is my head still spinning with 'What if?'s about roommates and dorms and space and classes?"
So awesome thing #1 about my mom-She has major talent in the Deciphering Grace's Rants arena.
And awesome thing #2 about my mom-I'll go on a vent like that, she'll take a beat to let me catch my breath, and then she'll say something short and sweet that addresses every single part of it. In this case, it was, "I think often times we start to stress when we feel ourselves going downhill. Your body can feel you're going downhill." TRUE. STATEMENT. Made it all make sense to me, and helped me even more to give myself permission to stop stressing because I was in fact going to be down and out for a bit.
Today both Caroline and I had high fevers and were pretty much useless (up to today I've been trying to get up and do homework and clean as much as I can), and Mommy just took care of us on top of shuttling Matt and planning his birthday bash (since we had to cancel his due to him being sick) and who knows what else. She never once acted frustrated or stressed when we were complaining about how dead we felt, or asked her to bring us something to eat, or pitifully yelled out the latest temperature report to her.
Awesome thing #3 about my mom-You know my worries about college I mentioned earlier? Those aren't new, I've been having freak-outs about college since at least November. She always brings a voice of compassionate reason to my frantic thoughts. Over Thanksgiving break I had a midnight longer-than-usual near panic attack about things, and somehow she walked out of her room just as I was stumbling out of mine to go to the kitchen to find anything to do to keep me breathing. She sat up for at least an hour with me, re-researching all of the meal plans and dorm options with me, calming my entirely irrational fears.
The awesome things about her go on and on, some of them I'm not even comfortable sharing publicly (right now. . . . that'll be a deep post when/if it happens). But its getting late and I want to shower while I have a low enough fever to stand and see straight at the same time, so I'll wrap this up.
Most of my life I've clashed with my mom, but this school year we are growing so close. She's a fantastic listener. She listens to not just my words, but my heart. She has taught me respect through her actions. Man, she is the best at teaching by example. The more clearly I see her, as a person rather than just my mom, the more I think she's a saint. Mom, I'm sorry it took me this long to figure that out.
For all of you reading this and thinking, "Gosh, well THIS isn't the most generic post in the world," or "She's not telling the whole story, everyone has a bad side," I'll say, yes, my mom isn't perfect. I remember talking with one of my friend's moms in middle school and really trying to be diplomatic when she commented, "I just can't see your mom ever yelling." Oh boy, that was a mental eye-roll. Yes, my mom yells sometimes, she loses her temper, she gets tired and snappy. Hopefully she doesn't mind me spilling the beans. :)
But really, she's only a human doing something superhuman.
I challenge you to take a second look at your mom, as a person.
Grace
P.S.-And the flaws you see in this post are probably due to her not editing it with me, I wanted it to be a surprise. :)
You are a very lucky girl to still have your Mom, let alone such a great one.
ReplyDeleteI love this post. Gives me hope for the future :)
ReplyDeleteIts funny you commented that today, because I just saw this and about an hour ago I sent my mom a text telling her how I'd been particularly missing her this weekend and I even said, "Sorry for being a brat most of the time!"
ReplyDelete