Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Great Penmanship Debacle



“I just felt like I couldn’t get it right”. These were the words my son said to me this morning when we were rehashing something we were discussing last night. Ok, we weren’t “discussing” anything; I was giving him a hard time about something. In a way, we were joking around, but I was serious to some degree. It was stupid. Isn’t it always? It was handwriting. I was giving him a hard time about his signature and how I couldn’t read it.

                Liam, Mary, and I were all trying to “forge” each other’s names last night when I began talking about how kids really aren’t taught to write well anymore because they mainly type. I asked, “What are you going to do when you leave someone a note and they can’t read who wrote it?” Anyway, we were mainly joking, but I realized I had stepped over the line. It wasn’t one thing I had done or said it was just a feeling, a look, an atmosphere. I felt horrible. Not because of what I said, but because my son felt like he “couldn’t get it right” and because it was because of me. Nothing is worse.

                The words Liam said this morning were not to cut me or even to be passive-aggressive. We are fine, he hugged me good-bye like he does every morning. All shall be well. But those words have echoed in my head over and over, “I just felt like I couldn’t get it right”. How many times have I felt like that in my life? How many times do I go to bed at night feeling like the whole day was a day of “Just not getting it right”? How many relationships, friendships, words said, words unsaid; how many times have I walked away from something with that empty, lonely, beaten-down feeling of “I just couldn’t get it right.”? Countless. Countless.

                Of course I did what I always do when my heart wants to crack open and I have to keep from crying, I called my mom. She assured me that we would probably all live through this great penmanship debacle. I imagined the times she felt like I do today. Parenthood isn’t easy. Nothing is really easy. I cried a little, but I was thankful that I cared enough to cry. I was thankful that my relationship with my children means enough to me that words matter; to them and to me. I am thankful that sometimes it takes us feeling like we just can’t do anything right, to take stock in all the things we really do work at doing well; what matters, what doesn’t.

                Every day we get to start over. Nearly everyday something knocks us down or God forbid we knock someone down. But thank God everyday… no, many times every day we are given chance after chance to do the next best thing, to do the next right thing. We are given chance after chance to lift, encourage, and  breathe hope into others.  So when we sit and take stock in our day we don’t have to say, “I just felt like I couldn’t get it right” and heaven forbid no one has to say that because of us, we can say, “I didn’t do it all right, but I did some things well today. I would sign my name to today”.

                I just chuckled to myself when I typed that (and Liam will laugh at this, too)… just make sure when you sign your name to your day, your parents can read it ;)

                I have to end with the text I got last night from my daughter. She always texts me goodnight whether it’s from her dad’s house or upstairs at my home. The text read, “Mommy, you are the glue to my stick, the peace to my sign, the alarm to my clock, the jelly to my beans, the best to my mommy. I love you, goodnight”.
Liam and Mary, you are the life in my blood,
I love you,
Mommy

Becky Wilkenson
March 7, 2013

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