we will never get it all right. all the time.
When I rise, it’s still dark. The sun is sleeping. I hear frogs, palms swaying.
The wall of windows I walk past from our bedroom to the kitchen gives nothing away but blackness.
Will the day emerge? It must. It always does.
God placed these reliable comforts here for us to lean on. To be the scaffolding of our days.
Moments later, within these walls I call home, my own world emerges.
The girls stumble down, Aster first. Messy haired, sandman eyes. Usually rubbing them as she squints against the lights I’ve flipped on even though they are dim.
Sienna follows later. Or maybe I have to wake her if she stayed up late reading.
The cats, brothers, are rubbing against my legs, tangled in my footsteps as I spoon food into their bowls.
It’s Friday. Pizza and cookie day.
Everyone ate their breakfasts and slipped into their jumpers with ease.
Hair and teeth brushed, they played together. Sitting at the table, markers and paint sticks gliding over pastel construction paper.
Backpacks, water bottles, homework, vitamins. We loaded up. Everyone smiles.
I was having a mom moment like, “wow, maybe I’ve actually got this thing a little bit.” I felt that while simultaneously waiting for the other shoe to drop. What am I missing here?
When I rolled up to school and shifted into park, it was only 7:37am. 8 minutes early!
And then. As the line started moving and kids were popping out of restored broncos and matte black cars with wings, I saw something that gave me a pit in my stomach.
Kids were wearing shortst, blue and yellow shirts, long ribbons in their hair.
Sh*t. I scanned my brain through all the school e-mails I’d read this past week. What did I miss? Spirit Day?
Whatever it is, I dropped the ball. My happy, smiling, my-mom-is-a-superhero kids are going to disappear in 3-2-1….
And that’s when my oldest noticed it, too.
She immediately frowned. Scowled at me. I had failed her. In the all-important way that a mom is supposed to know everything and get it all right, all the time, I had fumbled. In a flash my status plummeted.
My 3 year old was oblivious (amen), but my 8 year old was keenly aware of this horribly embarrassing moment. Drop off is a short and sweet event so she was out of the car and on her way while I sat in the drivers seat mouth opened to defend myself, but no words came to me.
To an 8 year old, it’s everything to be like your friends. To be the same. To fit in.
While this barely clicked on my radar, I felt the ping for my daughter. I get it.
I have those same feelings, too, they just look a little different in my grown up world. When I see someone doing what I want to be doing but for whatever reason haven’t done.
When you look around and it feels like everyone has figured something out but you. I think that’s what it felt like for her.
And even though I knew intellectually that it was a small infraction, emotionally I felt like I’d failed them, too.
I want to get it all right. All the time. I don’t want to drop the ball. But that’s not how life works.
I went to my mantra: Event + Response = Outcome. The only thing I can control is my response. What happens next? Focus on that.
I took some deep breathes. Drove home in silence.
I went into their rooms, collected the spirit t-shits, sharpied their names & classrooms on ziplock bags, stuffed the shirts inside.
I got back in the car. Returned to school, back in the drop off line.
This time, when I pulled up to the welcoming staff, I rolled down the window and calmly handed two baggies to the technology teacher. I explained. She looked at me with knowing eyes and said “I’m on it.”
I envisioned the shirts arriving to my girls, their happiness (maybe a little akwardness for my oldest) at putting them on and being part of the herd. Their school tribe.
I felt restored.
Because really we just want to be seen. To be connected. It’s how we’re wired from an evolutionary perspective. We are human and there is no denying the gravitational pull of needing togetherness and belonging. We are herd animals and we need each other.
When we feel nurtured in that, we are free to find our own independent paths and rhythms, held within the bigger picture of life.
There will be many more days of dropping the ball. Of falling short. Not quite living up to my expectations for myself.
I use moments like this, when the stakes are low, to build the muscle of intentionally responding rather than autopilot reactivity.
What do I control? How I respond. Where things go from here. We always have a choice. Today it was spirit t-shirts, but tomorrow it might (will) be bigger.
Just like the rising of the sun, a reliable comfort from God, we can guarantee life will keep coming at us.
I want to tell you to respond rather than react. Receive rather than resist. You have the power to make the next right choice. To send the moment, the day, your life, in a new direction. Don’t overcomplicate the power and simplicity of making a new choice.