When I Can’t Fix It

 

I absolutely am a pleaser person. I have been my whole life, for sure, but being married and having a family certainly exacerbated my pleasing tendencies. I’m sure there are are so many theories about people who like to please: nature, nurture, needing to do so to survive, having a hard to please parent, the list can go on and on. Regardless, because I am a pleaser, I am also a fixer. I try to make things right, or better, or less awful, or more awesome. Again, this list is never ending. It makes me so, so tired.

As you can probably imagine, when the pleasing, and the fixing tend to be running high, not only am I tired, but I can become very anxious. I think high functioning anxiety and high functioning enabling are very real co-morbidities of  the pleaser-fixer personality. Anyone else? I think people handle things differently, as well. Some pleaser-fixers are perpetually angry or crabby (and who can blame them, really?), some are putting on such a facade that they seem very laid back, and unbothered (then they have their meltdown quietly, at home, where no on can witness them breaking down), and some people probably just own it and tell everyone what’s going on with them. I’m probably a combination of all of these, depending on the hormones, current situation, and whether or not I’m too hungry.

(Can I get a witness?)

So, I’m having the best time visiting Minnesota (pretty much, blissfully, alone), and found out today that one of my dad’s brothers died this morning. The viewing/funeral is in two days. In NorthDakota. My dad is in Myrtle Beach. A hurricane is coming. He has way too much going on with him to get to the funeral.

I can’t make it better. I can’t please my North Dakota relatives by getting him or myself, or anyone from my family there in two days time. I’m supposed to be returning home that day.

I can’t fix it.

So, I’m not in a tailspin or anything (right now) but it hurts to not be able to fix things. I go into worry mode about my family that is grieving the loss of their dad. I wonder how they are. I wonder how my dad is coping. My heart literally hurts when I’m faced with this amount of grief and uncertainty. 

So, people pleasers and fixers- I’d love to pray with you as we navigate our crazy, messy, beautiful selves. I hope for peace to surround us when things feel out of control. I wish for hope to surround us when we can’t do what our very nature tells us to do daily… hourly. And I hope that those who love us can give us a little grace when our very unrealistic expectations that we put on ourselves start to bring us down.

Parenting the Adults

I am, undeniably, more stressed parenting adult children, than I ever was parenting the kids when they were young. I think it’s because I had much more control of the situations that arose when they were younger. I also was able to parent with consequences that meant something when the kids were in various stages. You want the Wi-Fi password?- I’ll give it to you when you finish your chores…  You want your toy back?- finish your vegetables… You want to go out with your friends?- finish cleaning your room… and so on and so forth. I just don’t have that kind of leverage anymore. 

I have one, successively launched child, out of three. She still has her issues, and some of her choices are not mine. My middle girl, though, has finished her bachelors degree in four years, is engaged to be married, and paying her own bills. Super proud of her!!!

The oldest is on the list for housing through the community services board. He will get housing assistance because of his autism. The man child will be launched within the next few months. He has held the same job for several years, has a core group of a few friends, is a Mason, and plays Dungeons and Dragons. He’s come a long way, baby. He will still need support, but he’s come so far!

The youngest (the child that is that child) is still my toughest work in progress child. I know all of us are works in progress, but she is always my challenging kid. I love her fiercely, and she is the one that consumes all my worries. She makes dangerous choices, and is constantly on my mind. I think, often, that God is teaching me something big through my experiences with her, and I pray He shows me and my family through it.

The adult children are definitely on their own paths, and really, all three of them are in a different place spiritually and mentally than I would have wished for. My good friend said once that she had a hard time believing that these kids came out of our house and upbringing. How did this happen? I can only shrug, because this family they grew up in is a God believing, Christian family. At least one child is away from the faith, and another behaves in a decidedly not-following-faithful-living type of way. 

I’m sure that free will and adult choices are bound to differ from kid to kid, and parent to kid. It’s so hard though, to watch them struggle as they have made conscious choices to step back from the faith they were raised in. I get it that their minds and hearts are different than mine, but it kind of breaks my heart that they are each in their own different relationship with God. That my children have chosen to live in a way that is so different from how my husband and I raised them,  makes me feel sad. And a little desperate. It’s hard. I love them so very much. I want so much for them.

I also know that I don’t see the big picture, thank goodness! Praise God. For real.

I am proud, in different ways, for each of my adult kiddos. I truly see reflections of Jesus in all of them, and I have to remember that they are loved even more infinitely by God than I can ever imagine as a human. I’m grateful for that. While I may be in a constant stat of stress and worry on this side of Heaven, I am confident that all will be made right on the other side of Heaven.

But, mamas of adult children, God sees you. He is with you. Even to the end of the age.

This Is How It Ends

Who else feels like we are in the midst of the Apocalypse (capital A)? I’m starting to wonder, myself.  It’s like that meme with guy looking out with big eyes, and the caption reads something like. “Me wondering what chapter of Revelation are we on today?”

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm

I asked my father who was born at the close of World War Two, who lived through Vietnam, The oil crisis of the 70s, the Bay of Pigs, the Cold War, the two Gulf Wars, and several banking crisis’ what he thought of the right now. Is it worse than now than it was back then? He answered with a resounding YES. My daddy is very wise, so I listen when he has opinions.

He also said that we are still living in the greatest country in the world, not to lose sight of that.

I agree.

Regardless of how I feel about the dumpster fire that started with the manufactured virus, all the lies, the election integrity issues, the current state of our government- I find that for better or worse, I am in the right now. I have to find peace with the right now, especially because so little of the world is peaceful. While exuding peace seems next to impossible sometimes (a lot of times), the reality is that it is what it is. Living angry and anxious all the time isn’t good for my health- or yours- or anyones’!

I am so very anxious about how the world is (again) right now, how our country is right now. I know it’s wrong to complain if I don’t have a solution, but I don’t have one. I vote, I write my congress people, I try to be kind and helpful. I pray. I take care of those closest to me. Yet, the country and world that I love seem to be slipping away. Everyone is so angry, and confused, and it feels like we’ve forgotten how to talk with each other about differing thoughts and opinions without blowing up!

And, as I write (why I write), maybe that’s it. The world is supposed to slip away. We are, after all, aliens in a foreign land. God is sovereign. We are not meant to be here very long. And, as always, God is not surprised by any of this, even though I am still shocked every day by something.

 

Perhaps the whole point is to just do what you can do? Be kind. Take care of you and yours. Work hard to be peaceful, to be a light. Be involved. Answer hate with love. It may sound corney or naive, but it’s something, right?

So, as dismayed as anyone feels, lets bear up with one another, and forward on.

Peace Be With You.