Finding sweetness when the sneakers are stinky

Loving my family even when it's all too much

This morning two different parts of me had an argument. With each other. Inside me.

One part of me was flattened in a chair while my family swirled around me, eyes closed, utterly flooded, just trying to BEAR it. The terrible smell wafting from the bathroom, the pounding bass from the teen’s stereo, the squabbling of the two youngest, the frantic cacophony of TikTok, the growl of the heater in the mudroom that is not even budging the mysterious wet spot on the carpet. My heart was breaking for friends in LA and I wanted to weep for them and mostly I wanted to run away from all of it. Meanwhile my phone kept dinging with text messages about convoluted logistics involving cars, ferries, and conflicting needs. I HATE THIS, I screamed silently.

Another part of me was frantic in the opposite direction. Be here now! she whispered. This is precious! You will miss this when they leave! It is all going to change soon, soak it up! And you are so lucky— so impossibly lucky!— your house is standing, things are mildewing not burning, be fucking grateful!!! Also hurry up and make a meal plan so you can make a grocery list so you can grab the groceries when you make the first run to town and don’t forget to coordinate the sleepover dropoff with the work shift pickup!

Having both of these parts screaming at me makes me feel crazy.

Because they’re both right, and they’re both wrong. They both have tunnel vision. And the more I try to shush them, the louder and wilder they get.

Sigh. I know you know.

Always, the way through— so consistent it’s boring!— is to get big enough— enormous— to make room for both of their realities. Because they’re both mine.

I LOVE my family, and also family life is grueling.

Can I hold both of these parts of me with tenderness? Can I acknowledge both of them so that they don’t hijack the bus? Can I keep returning to the larger self, grounded in my body in this noisy moment but also seeing it all as a profound and beautiful mystery? (My most honest answer is: sometimes.)

My theme for this year is In Sweetness. My goal is to find the sweetness in things just as they are, and if there is no sweetness, to make some.

I am keenly aware that these could be the sweetest years; it’s the last six months of all of us living together under one roof like this.

And yet these are big churning waters we’re navigating, with a thousand small irritations and messes, and I know that unless I am careful I will look back and realize that I missed the whole thing. Or rather, I will have done the dishes and driven people to drama practice and made sure they took out the trash— but forgotten to stop and savor it, actually be IN it.

It’s tricky because when I’m in it is so overwhelming— so loud loud loud— and I am like Goldilocks, craving solitude or missing them all madly, but having a hard time choking the actual porridge down.

Missing them preemptively, and also feeling like I will claw my own skin off if everyone can’t stop jiggling and kicking me at the dinner table— both.

So where can I find sweetness, when I am such a bitter cantankerous old boot?

Where I can.

In walking outside for a moment when it gets too loud. In the orange slices hanging above the fireplace. In snuggling on the couch watching a tv show, giving a teen a foot massage. Kissing my husband in the kitchen.

Sweetness in playing cards at the table. Sweetness in an unprompted hug. Sweetness in the winter bulbs I planted: paperwhites and amaryllis poking bright green spears out of the dirt.

One of the sweetest times is at night— taking a shower and washing off the day, putting on my soft pretty flannel pajamas, and climbing into bed. I turn on my little lamps and pull out my current novel, and I read in the quiet house with my family breathing away in slumber. What a simple thing. It turns out it’s free (have you heard about this marvelous thing called the library?? I only recently discovered it) and always available.

I wish I could say that I loved it all, but I don’t. Life is itchy and often smells bad. (Preteen sneakers in a humid climate, heaven help me, they are unbelievable.)

It’s such an odd and disorienting thing to be the thing that people push OFF of— not the thing they’re drawn to, or want to engage with— but the backdrop, the thing for them to bounce their experimental rubber balls of self and feelings off of. My job is to stand there, be sturdy, not crash on them. It requires enormous stamina.

I do a lot of deep breathing, I tell myself not to take it personally, I remind myself that predictable moderate stressors are good for everybody even if they are incredibly UNPLEASANT when they’re happening. I try to be sturdy enough to let them have all their feelings, and also require a certain courtesy level in the common areas for my own sanity.

I don’t know if I’m getting any of it right. Mostly it feels all wrong, hurry hurry, come on come on, I already told you, yes again, just like last time, yes still, no I did mean it, I understand your feelings, time to go, that sounds hard, I love you, I know you’re going to figure it out, it’s going to get better, life is so hard sometimes.

So stay, stay, stay, Katherine, stay in the moment, stay with them. Laugh when you can, dance when there is music on even though they roll their eyes, apologize when you yell. (Except when they deserve it.)

When really I’m just trying to say,

I love you I love you I love you you are making me crazy but gosh I love you.

Which is exactly what I say to my own cantankerous cranky parts. I love you, I’ve got this, you’re okay, take a deep breath.

We’re getting enormous.

much love,

Katherine

Hey— I wrote a whole book of poems to let my parts tell their stories, so I could embrace them and integrate them all. It’s called We Are All Poems, and if today’s missive resonated at all, I think you will love my book. It’s available from Bookshop.org, Amazon, Indigo or amazon.ca in Canada, and most online booksellers, or your indie bookshop can order it for you.