Getting Started

I just finished mopping up a pool of tears after rereading an excerpt from Patti Digh's book Life is a Verb entitled, Just Help Them Get Started. On the surface it is about her struggle to realize that her toddler daughter is giving up her afternoon nap. It seems at first that her daughter is wailing and screaming and scratching at things in protest just to hurt her mother. I have a toddler. I can relate.

In a way that only Patti Digh can open our eyes, she turns the tale around by realizing that she was ignoring the fear of her daughter, a lack of the ability to get to sleep at that time of day, a fear of being left alone in the room to try and try and try to sleep in the boundless dark. As she is storming out of the child's room, she finally hears her words through the screaming, "Just help me get started!" This is kid-speak for "stay with me, I can't figure out how to do this myself." I am an insomniac. I can relate.

In a follow-up challenge to this story, Patti encourages us to examine our own hall of fears. The ones that make us stop listening to the cries of fear from others that are so often disguised as hurtful actions. I hurt people around me when I am fearful. I can relate.

My big, glaring fear is loneliness. This is almost a joke because I am not a people-person at all. As a stay at home/work at home mother, I am debilitated by isolation when it hits me that I have not spoken to an adult in many hours or when I have not accessed a spiritual outlet such as hospice or church. This fear can often make me seem like I resent the people closest to me, the ones who live with me. My husband and my daughter...not the cats--I honestly do resent the cats most of the time.

Yesterday my husband's company decided it was time for him to move to Michigan, with or without me, whether or not our house has sold. Because we are not making the type of money to carry two mortgages, this will leave me ALONE during the week in an old house in Cleveland, with a toddler that I love but is prone to drive me insane and two cats that I resent. He will rent a small apartment in Michigan.

To summarize with an understatement: I am afraid.

My husband is super-man. He puts my needs first. He puts our daughter before all of that. He notices when I am too exhausted to bathe our daughter and get her in her PJs. He notices when I need a break and gives me the day off. Basically, the way I live my life is because I have him in it most every day.

Now who will I be without that? I will examine this fear. For now, I am forgiving myself for being stuck in the stage that has me clawing and screaming, "Help me get started!"