Medicine for Our Soul

This year we signed our 8yr old son signed up for Lacrosse. I grew up in a hockey family, my dad played, uncles, cousins and brothers. It was the only winter sport worth playing and watching when you’re enduring Ontario Winters and growing up surrounded by boys.  I played and I loved it. So naturally when my son showed interested in Lacrosse, I jumped on the opportunity to sign him up. We have been through a variety for sports to find one that he would love. Soccer, baseball, swimming, karate and hip hop dance, just to name a few. We were both mentally exhausted and the funds to restart a new sport each year had taken its toll on the cheque book.  

My husband volunteered to coach, he is a self-proclaimed athlete (and does have the sport history to lay such a claim) with basketball topping his list. This love of sports has given him the mentality of “Play of fun, but I don’t know anyone who likes to lose” or another favorite “2^nd place is the first place loser”. These are all mottos that go against my reasoning for sports. I see sports as something to teach children, team work, team commitment, sportsmanship and something to focus their energy and time on.  Where I grew up and I’m sure this rings true for a lot of places, if you didn’t have a sport to play you, your idle hands found other things to get into. My brother is an example that sticks in my mind, hockey was his outlet, and he loved it and was pretty good at it. He came into some trouble in his younger years with some other kids and as a punishment my parents decided the only way to teach him a lesson was to take him out of it. This only left more time on his hands to fill. He feel deeper and deeper in to the wrong crowd and focused his time more and more on the wrong things. This is when I decided sports would be a priority in my family.

 

As the lacrosse season approached, I started to wonder if my son and his step-dad’s relationship could with stand this kind of strain. Their relationship has been rock at times. As my son grew, he started to have all the questions most children with separated parents have. Those unavoidable questions that make you search your entire being for a way to answer without cause more questions and the hurt the will most likely carry. With my husband’s competitive nature and my son’s sensitive and thin-skinned nature, I thought for sure it was a disaster in the making.  My mind told me told me to be weary but my heart hoped for the better.

As the season progressed I was amazed at how much good this new dynamic was for us.  My son and husband enjoyed and looked forward to practices and games. They grew closer in the area that brought them together, stopping into sports shops to check out the newest, coolest gear.  Talked about the sport and discussed players on their team. My son started to help out more around the house and when his step dad requested, with no following debate.  I was astonished, it was more than I had hoped for.

 For years it seemed like my son battled my husband for the Alpha position in our blended family. This lead to daily arguments with me caught in the middle playing referee. It was emotionally draining and I was at my wits end.

When game days came around, I could feel the happiness radiating. Lacrosse had become my family’s medicine. It was healing us in a way I had never thought it would. We were learning where we stood with each other and how to communicate. I had to let go of the idealization of step-dad and son being each other’s best friends and realize that we will have a family that functions in its own way, and are laying a foundation where that friendship may follow.

We have now closed the season and placed 2^nd in the league. Not only was my son taking pride in helping his team but my husband was exceptionally proud to say they placed 2^nd overall. His mentality changed and was happy to have a team that worked hard and having the honour to coach them.

I am glad I took the chance and let my heart lead. I am guilty of ignoring my heart, letting my mind take over where I should be letting my spirit lead. One of the first lessons my mother and grandmother taught me as a First Nations person.  Sometime our physical self doesn’t have all the pieces and that’s where our spirit knows where to lead us. That feeling that wells up inside you and tells you “This is good. This is what we need.” My spirit lead my family to the medicine it needed.

 

 

The Not so Fun Carousel Ride

 

It starts the same way every time. My day is planned out in my head and somewhat on our family schedule. My kids are doing the “mommy can you…” and the “mommy where is my…” as I am dressing, feeding and trying to keep my offspring happy and content in the waking hours of each morning. While my husband is either on his phone or the computer after he has showered and is looking like he can take on the day. Asking for the 100^th time what my plans are for the day and what I need to do. I respond with irritation in my voice because;

1.)    He knows I plan my day around his schedule as my day can flex more.

2.)     I only have told about 100 times my list of “to-do” involves planning them out around the schedule he gave me.

My irritation deepens as I catch a glimpse of myself, puffy eyes and bedhead hair tell tales of late night laundry and trying to play catch up on house chores. The pit in my stomach tells me not to leave the house, for this tired, puffy version of myself is not a sight for the public and I don’t know if a chipper version of myself will emerge. This probably due to the fact that I really can’t recall the last time I showered before my day starts or the fact that I can’t hear my own thoughts. And the only ones that make it through are the negative ones that seems to be the only ones that are loud enough to combat the household noise. 

My husband who is most likely on guard as he knows morning and last minute changes that leave me scrambling are not my forte’. He either informs me of something he forgot to tell me about the day, i.e. a meeting or an appointment, which causes some brainstorming and revamping of the schedule that took some time to coordinate and then asks what’s wrong dear?

That sounds the alarms and the gates are open. I hurl all things that have been tucked away like a game of pet-peeve Tetris. I’m on level 10 of 10 with only one line left and that just lost me the game. I list off all the ways I am feeling, including but not limited too; unappreciated, tired, unkempt and most of all unheard.

You see the last feeling there, well that only appeared after I looked and sifted through a lot of things I didn’t know was carrying around. I didn’t know how to tell my husband that I felt unheard. I was talking but I didn’t feel that I was being heard.  This carousal argument could have stopped years before but I didn’t know how too calmly and rationally say “I feel like I am unheard” and this was in many aspect of my life. I felt that things where not happening the way I wanted them to or to my expectation of them and I was feeling powerless over them because I felt that I wasn’t being heard.

Our life is so contingent on other people’s schedules; the kids school, sports, work meeting and appointments. That it left very little time to be able to carve out some adult conversation with my friends or a date night with my husband. My exhausted brain couldn’t even fathom how to say I needed some space and quite.  

My life was comparable to “kerplunk”, my marbles were being held up in a nest of carefully place sticks. With every change, the taking of one stick, I didn’t know when they come crashing down and I would lose the game. So, when the stick that lost the game was pulled I would lose my marbles. Yelling was the only way that I like could be heard and listing the reasons why everyone else was at fault but me.

Since unearthing this pattern of mine, I have tried to change it but it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to clean up the aftermath and fall out. This consistent explosion had my husband suffering from PBD; Post Blow-up Defence. It’s a “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” kind of thing. He was so used to my reaction to what he saw as trivial matters, that he was already subconsciously on the defences, trying to decipher tones, body language and auras. Even if there was nothing more than tiredness.   

As I begin to clean-up the aftermath and I know that this will be something that I will have to continually beware of, not only for my marriage but for my children. It seems that role models of healthy marriage seem to be few and far between. I want my girls and my son to know that they have a voice and to find a partner that will support them in expressing it in a way this is fostering of self-growth. I think this is one of the greatest skills we can give our children, a voice and the means to use it so that people around them will listen.

So to the mommies and I’m sure there are daddies too, out there that feel unheard, please find your voice, you never know who is waiting to listen to you or who has been all along.

Cheers,

CNDKwe