failure

At the Crossroads of Mistakes and Apologies

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Behind all those placid expressions, her eyes betray me to the truth. They are puffy in their corners, bloodshot, and spent. Each vessel webs together like a memoir of our war before dinner. How she snapped a blanket at her brother, stomped the hardwood before me, and eventually collided with her own humanity by crying on her bed. Well, wailing the injustices of the world.

“Come sit by me,” I say gently across the table. Spelling homework, her nemesis, a struggle so overwhelming that at times I see the way she gives up trying, is splayed in front of her. She moves without a fight in an outfit I am surprised to like. This alone tells me she’s growing older. It wasn’t so long ago I was explaining the crime of her tube socks and capris, while now I find that I say, “I really like what you put together this morning,” as she walks a little peppier.

It’s as if I see her for the first time in years. But when I look, I see failure. In me.

My oldest daughter, the one who made me a mother, half-child and half-grown, the girl I’ve let down. Maybe because sometimes parenting is a struggle so overwhelming that at times I see the way I give up trying.

I pull her into me and wrap my arms until she relaxes. “My girl,” I say, turning her shoulders square to mine. “I forget. You somehow get the most expectations, the most responsibility, I guess because you were here first. I forget  you are still my girl.”

Her mouth turns slightly, a smile that hesitates from the lessons of pain cautiously recalling that some things may be too good to be true. I have taught her that her innocent longings might be met with angry, worn out replies like, “Can you please, just, pick up!” That her need for security, her most basic questions of acceptance and worthiness of love could be answered by tense bursts of, “How many times have I told you to brush. Your. TEETH…return your library book…bring your homework?”
That mistakes are an opportunity for me to be exasperated instead of the part of life that teaches us.

She nods at what I’m saying and then a nervous giggle escapes through those adult teeth who are waiting to fit her mouth. My knuckles relax onto my temple and I settle into not hurrying anything. She writes with 4th grade sloppiness I find beautiful just because it’s hers.

We sit in the shadow of our conflicts, meeting at the intersection of mistakes and apologies, and I think that maybe this is the gift I have to offer. My parenting at its best, only when I’ve been at my worst. That like Spelling homework, life is full of disappointment as much as joy and promises pain as much as reward but also, failure as a way to something rich and real.

It’s Allowed

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In an outfit I would never pick and one she always wants, the eyes of my youngest dart between two movie cases. A duo of princesses, each the heroine of their own story, and each role models I love her idolizing. But she cannot choose. I see her mind working, back and forth, afraid to pick one over the other because dang-it, they are both great.

“Actually, I just want to take both of them upstairs,” she finally decides, not really deciding at all but procrastinating the inevitable.
“Okay, sure.” I laugh under my breath.

On my bed, the struggle is the same. Location change hasn’t made it easier, but finally she goes for it. “This one. I’ll do Brave next time.”

I love this, the way she likes more than one thing and then knows what she wants. Except it could be, that after watching the one she’s chosen, she’ll wish she would have picked differently. She may regret the yellow dress and grossly oversized Beast. She may get halfway through and think, lots of red hair and a bow is the story my heart wanted today.

Choices, we have to make them. And sometimes I want it all when only one disc can fit into the player. Other times I go for one thing and regret it or find out it was the wrong direction.

So?

Failure, we try so hard to avoid it. And why? Because it’s hard, it’s painful? But guess what, it’s allowed. It is okay to fail, have regrets. Some of the best personal growth I’ve encountered has been through failure.

“Watch.” She looks at me to make sure my eyes are not on the computer, my phone, or scrolling the pages of an electronic novel on my device. “Watch,” she says again.
I look up, arms folded to communicate that I’m not busy.
Multicolored, magical lights are sprinkling around him. His claws are turning to toes, light pouring out of every one. He’s wrapped up in his own cape, swirling.
“He’s gonna be different. Watch.”
I am, baby girl. I promise I’m here. 
Again with the back and forth of her eyes, from me to the T.V. “See?” What she’s really asking is, Mommy, pay attention so you can anticipate what I am anticipating. Are you? Do you get this about me?
She grins with her whole face when the prince stands before the princess.

It wouldn’t have mattered which one she went with, even a wrong choice can be an abundance of lessons that will change us for the better. It may hurt like hell, those bundle of regrets, but it isn’t wasted. It forces us to grow deeper roots and become better people.