Confessions of a Make Believe Mom

Okay, so here goes. Time to get real. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter and a friend. The order of these things matters little because at this moment I am all at once regardless of which came first or weighs more heavily. I have three children. I am divorced. I am remarried. I have lost a child. I have had some things happen in my life that one might think would give me some insight, some perspective and maybe even some wisdom. I feel like I should be able to look at any given situation and in the very least size it up as "not the worst thing that has happened to me" and then move on accordingly with totally inspired and appropriate actions and reactions. Not so.

My confession is this -- I have no frickin idea what I am doing. I am totally making this up as I go along. I, ahole on a PC, am a total fraud. There, I said it. This thought has come and gone often throughout my supposed "adult" years but it swept over me like an eerie transmedium psychic experience a few days ago. Think Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost when Patrick Swayze jumps into her body. Everything is very fuzzy, I feel woozy and I do believe if anyone had been looking at me my body would have looked like an image in a funhouse mirror. That particular moment of realization, what dear Oprah would call a "lightbulb" moment (only in this one the bulb shatters in my hand while the shards spray my eyeballs) was followed with a need to check with GTC. I asked, "Do you ever feel like you aren't really an adult? Like you're just in some sort of make believe world and just hoping no one can see it? Like you're not really an adult at all and the kids, this house, all of it is just some weird fantasy?" He did his best to reassure me with, " Yeah, all the time." This did not reassure me. His answer came too fast and confidently. I continued to wonder.

Yesterday afternoon my suspicions were confirmed unequivocally. Call it a sign from god or from the mother ship but this could not be mistaken. Tell me more, you say. Well, ok, I will sum it up for you. I took my kids to the doctor's office for check ups, flu mists and unbeknownst to me until just after the check up -- a SHOT. That's right. A shot. Needle and all. My kids are terrified of this. I can't figure out why really. The not so nice nurse brings in a needle and a band aid into the tile laden, cold room and shoves it their arm, slaps on the band aid and walks out. Smiling is not in the manual I guess. Anyway, yesterday this went very badly. Very, very badly. I cannot emphasize how much of an understatement that is. At the same time I cannot recount it for you here because it is still too painful and fresh for me and I didn't even get the damn shot. If I could have avoided yesterday's scene by taking a 12 inch needle under my fingernail I would have done so. In fact, I may do that today just to dull the memory.

What sticks with me about the entire event is my reaction to all of it. I have spent the better part of the last 16 hours beating the pulp out of myself for not handling this better. I could have asked for a moment, I could have rescheduled the shot, I could have NOT been angry at my kids when it was all done. None of the above were the inspired and appropriate actions that I chose. I didn't beat them which is really a plus but at the same time I keep thinking why should I be mad at them? My job is to help them feel safe and secure and I failed monumentally yesterday.

I can't seem to wrap my brain around it all just yet but I do know this -- next time it will not be "nurse or doctor knows best." Next time in whatever situation I find myself in I believe I would do well to remember the feeling of make believe and embrace it. I believe I will truly reach that elevated "adult" status once I accept that I don't have all the answers, that sometimes I will fail and that shots suck every time no matter one's age. I also need to realize that I won't find my answers in a book about Touchpoints, The Strong Willed Child, 1-2-3 Magic or How To Talk To Kids So They Will Listen. I will try to remember that I should take neither credit nor blame in most parental situations. I will make it a point to never ever look down my nose in judgment at another parent for some behavior their child may exhibit and erroneously believe "my kids would never do that" or worse yet "I would never let my kids do that." It is ALL a complete and total crapshoot. That does not absolve me of any parental or grown up responsibility it just gives me a larger range of motion for the choices I make. It allows me to realize I may actually know nothing but it's the same nothing that every other person knows.