making the boys cry

Wow, I have the touch these days.  There are a lot of tense people on campus these days, and all the real-life stresses seem to be magnified at this time of the semester.

Within the past three days on campus, I have had three male students cry--one in the hall, one in my office, and one in class.  Fortunately for them, I was the only witness that I could tell.  And each of them had really good reasons for crying.  (All were relationship-related, involving break-ups, cheating, and arguing.)

At the risk of sounding sexist, it is disconcerting to have a male student cry.  When it's a young woman, I put my arm around her shoulder, hand her tissues, and offer her chocolate.  Supporting other women is a natural thing for me, so it isn't something I even think about.

With a man, however, I don't know what to do.  I don't want to touch inappropriately (and why doesn't this cross my mind with a woman?), and the "chocolate will fix everything" line doesn't work quite the same way on guys.  With my husband and sons, I can always put my arms around them, quietly hold them, and then, when they're ready, gently ask them, "What's your next step?" or "What do you need from me right now?" 

I wish someone would hand me the rule book on dealing with male student tears.  They don't teach that in graduate school.

broken (not the same kind)

I got a call yesterday from the athletic trainer at high school telling me that my 15-year-old son took a bad fall at wrestling practice.  A trip to the emergency room revealed a bad break.

I stayed home from school today to make phone calls and get my son into the doctor.  I was fully expecting to be scheduling surgery or at least having him walk around with one of those figure-8 braces.

Instead, we are doing nothing.  The clavicle has stem cells, and the bone can regrow all on its own.  In fact, the doctor said that in a young person, you can completely remove the clavicle and stitch back up the tube where it had been.  The stem cells in there will actually grow a completely new collarbone.  I think my jaw dropped.

So my broken son will heal while wearing a sling.  No brace, no cast, and no surgery.  A sling will provide support while the body does what it is designed to do.  He'll probably need some help getting dressed the next few days, but he'll even be able to take a shower and remove the sling at times.  It makes me wonder how many things would be just as well if left alone.

blessings

Life balances.

I started off my day yesterday crying over my blog entry.  (To be fair, I was crying anyway and the blogging was incidental.)

But then some lovely things happened.

When my husband got home, we had a real and good conversation about a "conversation" we'd had the evening before (which is probably what had set me off in the first place).  I felt like he really heard me, and that mattered so much.  I've been working hard at being respectful and not reactive for a while, and I felt like it was starting to make a difference.  Things felt more relaxed with him than they have for a while, and I felt comforted.

Then I logged on today to see that my friend Rita wrote such a lovely and heartfelt comment about my post yesterday.  She said some things that I really needed to be reminded of about my kids (thanks, Rita!).

I had come up early from school today, due to a combination sinus infection/tummy thing that caused me to let my last class go before it was scheduled to be over.  I was feeling quite "blah."  I just wanted someone to take care of me.  I asked Child #1 if he would be willing to go to the store to get me some juice and a thermometer.  Not only did he agree to do that, he offered to get things to make dinner for the family.

So this child I was worried about having ruined showed me that I hadn't broken my children after all.  When the need was there, he stepped up to the plate, shouldered the responsibility, and took care of another human being.

My heart warmed, and I was once again reminded that God will do what He wants with my kids despite my efforts and errors.  So all is well, and I am feeling blessed again today.

broken

I've been having a rough time.  For the past ten years.

As I've been thinking about stress, depression, finances, faith, family dynamics, marriage, etc., etc., etc., I can't help but try to understand when problems started to happen and why some things got to where they did.

The fact that I'm finally trying to understand all this is a sign that I am genuinely doing better than I was, but it's hard.  What keeps coming into my mind, though, is a whole conglomeration of stuff from the year we moved here.  Yes, that was 2001.  Yes, it was practically a decade ago.  My husband wants to know why I can't let that stuff go.  Well, no, he doesn't want to know why.  He just wants me to do it.  He thinks I'm broken (I am, just a bit), and he thinks that once I get fixed, everything in our lives will be better.

That is so simplistic.  First, emotional brokenness is not something that can just go get fixed.  Even depression that can be addressed medically leaves tracks in its wake.  Everything exists within a context and is connected to many other things in my life and, therefore, in our lives.  The process of "fixing" is one that will take time, understanding, and work.  I will need support.  That doesn't just mean applauding me when I accomplish something; it also means engaging in difficult conversations when needed and being quiet at other times--and accepting that sometimes the best thing to do is simply to ask what I need.

Second, The brokenness didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen in isolation.  It is the result of time after time of situations that didn't meet my needs.  Patterns were laid down that have to be understood and acknowledged.  Only then can the patterns be unwoven and rebuilt into better, healthier patterns.  Furthermore, he has had his own difficult experiences, with a series of job losses and then an extended time of unemployment.  I can hardly be the only one broken here, and it is unfair to put it all on me.

Third, and this is the part that I really struggle with with him, he is part of how this all built to where it is.  I struggled greatly when we moved here, for various reasons, and he was not able to be there for me emotionally.  Even then, I could understand why (mostly due to the demands of the job we moved here for him to do).  Nonetheless, I was so vulnerable at that time, with absolutely no friends in my life other than him, that understanding his situation didn't erase the emotional needs I had and what I needed from him.  Since then, we have developed the pattern where when I state something I need or ask a question, he perceives it as a challenge, a disrespect, or a blame on him.  It doesn't mean anything is his fault.  But how can I talk with him about anything relating to family life if he gets angry and thinks I'm accusing him of something every time I try to say how I feel?  If I can't say it to the person who is supposed to be my best friend, then who do I have?  And how am I supposed to respond when he tells me I'm the reason for the kids being x, y, or z?

How do we get out of this cycle?  I am coming to realize that until recently, I have not grown emotionally since we moved here.  I am stunted, still waiting now for what I needed then.  And the longer I've gone without it, the more bitter and resentful I've become.  My heart still hurts from that time.  Nothing is going to make it magically unhurt.  I wish it were as simple as letting it go.  I sense I am approaching a point when I can let go of the things that happened (and didn't' happen) when we moved here.  But that in itself won't undo a decade of patterns that grew out of those experiences.

I am working on acting in the way that I used to, in the way that the person I want to be would act.  Sort of an "act like it's okay to make it start to feel okay" approach.  To a certain extent, I think that is helpful already.  I feel a lightening of the spirit in small ways.  But it doesn't change the underlying feelings, and I still feel like I'm working on all this alone.

All of these patterns have damaged our marriage, our family, our children.  I have to figure out how to live with the knowledge that I have not been the wife and mother that I should have been and that I yearned to be.  Now, my kids are practically grown and I don't know if I can rebuild anything for them.  These wonderful, beautiful souls have grown up as survivors in a broken family, with a broken mother, and nothing I can ever do will make up for that.  I feel like I have ruined everything for these beautiful people.

Hmm.  This is a depressing post.  Not sure what's up with me today, although I think some of it is that I'm starting to be able to see some things more clearly and facing them is part of the work I have to do.  How sucky for me.

the itsy bitsy spider goes to grad school

Today in class, we were having a good conversation about civil discourse.  My students had just completed a writing and responding activity that allowed them to see layers of communication that can develop as a subject is publicly discussed, and they were able identify the mostly civil and few less-than-civil comments.  We were connecting this to an article they had read and some issues on campus, and, well, the point is that we were immersed in a good class discussion.

And then it happened.

One group of students froze, all intellectual activity ceasing.  A spider had appeared on the wall in front of them.  As my entire class moved over to the other side of the room, I dealt with the spider.  And it struck me how some moments shake the layers off us and make us simply humans, together in the same space.

When I was in graduate school, the conversations at grad student table were about posturing.  People talked about which scholarly theories they were studying, how those theories informed their teaching decisions, which people around the table were most marginalized by society.  (I was always assumed to lose that contest.  I was straight, white, and engaged--nothing out of the ordinary about me at all--until I pointed out that at that particular table filled with people who identified as "other," with African-American, gay, divorced, and single, I was the one who was marginalized.)  It was all about being perceived as intellectually worthy.  Even talking about teaching issues that didn't incorporate theoretical persectives was considered mundane.  When I mentioned that I was working with a student who was homesick or I could understand how some of our students embraced world views different from those of us around the table, I could see the eyes roll and hear the deliberate attempts to change conversation.

Then one day I was in the grocery store (how mundane of me!) and ran into a grad school colleague, one of the ones who was the least tolerant of non-intellectual talk at the grad table.  And what do you know, we were both buying Lucky Charms!  We ended up having our first real conversation, about concrete real life stuff, there in the cereal aisle, debating the merits of Lucky Charms vs. Count Chocula.  Somehow, being in the grocery store acknowledged that no matter what our intellectual bent, we were still two humans in bodies that needed regular care and feeding.  It was triumphant moment somehow.

Watching my students cling to each other with their feet curled up on their chairs this morning reminded me that sometimes we just need to let go of the layers and the artifice and remember that we're all in this together and that there is comfort in that.