Recently my husband went on a yoga retreat. He’s been doing yoga on and off for years, and he finds it calming and centering. Mainly, for him, it’s just excellent exercise. And he enjoys it. Or at least enjoys the feeling he gets at the end!
I’m grateful for my husband and the other people who joined him on his yoga retreat. He has a stressful job. He tends to be stressed out. If something can help him, I want him to please do it.
I grew up in a loving, close family, with hard-working parents who were able to supply us with all our basic needs, but not as much extra as everyone around us. While other kids were getting new skis for Christmas, we were unwrapping socks and pajamas. One exciting toy would have been included when we were kids. Even a bike my parents somehow acquired for a good price. And we kids were happy. But there wasn’t a lot of talk about existential ideas. There just wasn’t room for that. We always had enough to eat, but often at the end of the month, dinner was made with whatever was in the cupboards because we were out of money. I grew to hate spaghetti and tuna casserole because that’s what they represented.
My parents are loving and kind, but the example for us was that life was work. My mom and dad worked so hard and didn’t complain. There were setbacks once in awhile, too. We moved several times in the course of two years as my dad sought out a job that would pay enough to support his wife and three girls. My mom ended up taking a job, too, after staying at home with her kids for many years. The message to me was: You work, you take what comes at you, and you accept hard times and you just move on. You might very well have a miserable job, but you do it because you need a job. Happy is a luxury. Life is work. You just do your best.
So to me, the idea of spending one’s time and energy pondering great questions like, “What can I do to fulfill myself?” and “What job will make me truly happy?” have seemed frivolous. If you get to think about that, was my thinking, you are allowing yourself a true luxury. Most people in the world are thinking about how to get the next meal on the table. This is a question for rich people and rich people only.
This thinking has been a double edged sword, I think. Maybe triple edged. On the one hand, I find contentment more easily, probably, than a person who is constantly striving for more. That’s a good thing. Not happiness, necessarily, but acceptance and contentment. Am I on cloud nine? Sometimes. Most of the time I’m probably at about a 4 and a half.
On the other hand, I might be better off if I could indeed pursue this line of thinking and put more effort into self-fulfillment. That sounds so good! I do volunteer at the elementary school (even though my kids graduated) and this blog is really meaningful, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that stuff. They’re just things I do.
If there could be a third hand, it would be this: The Zen philosophy, from what I understand, promotes the acceptance of What Is in your life. That’s not to say you don’t make changes, but the idea is that you put forth effort and then let go of the outcome. If there is one lesson I have learned as the mother of an Asperger’s kid, it is precisely that: Try, but let go of the outcome.
Notice I don’t use the word fight. I’m not fighting anybody or anything. I’m not fighting Maddie, I’m not fighting the school system, I’m not even fighting autism. I’m trying to help Maddie live the best life she can. And I don’t even have a picture of what that is, exactly. And I’m grateful for that. I do my work, and I try to be happy with that.
I would imagine very few people fully internalize that idea. It’s one thing to understand it on an intellectual level and quite another thing to put it into practice. That is my journey, and I’m making baby steps.
Will all my efforts to help her get organized work? I have no idea. Will her grades ever reflect her intellectual capabilities? Beats me. Will she go to college or be able to hold down a job? Now we’re getting into some tricky territory. I want to let go of any expectations because the outcome would indicate a success or failure on my part. And I don’t want to measure myself that way. For one thing, it’s out of my control, really. For another, I’d prefer not to think of my life as a series of successes and failures. As a parent of any child, it’s best to let all of that go. As I’ve said for many years, you do your best as a parent, and then you cross your fingers and hope your kid turns out okay.
There are moments, though, when the uncertainty of the outcome with Maddie is overwhelming. It’s hard not to feel that your child’s adult life isn’t a direct result of your parenting abilities. For my son, it’s easy to imagine his future in a way. He is motivated and ambitious. He will go to college (where, I have no idea), he will forge a decent career in something, he will get married and have kids. I realize the future is never that certain, but I know these are all likely to happen. I can see it. I’m not afraid for him.
But as much as I want those things for Maddie, her future seems harder to predict.
For the sake of both my children, though, a more Zen approach to mothering is healthiest. I will do my best to support my kids, to love them and teach them and model for them. That is all I can do. I’m not sure how well “hoping” fits into the Zen philosophy, but I’m not letting go of that. I will do what I can, and hold onto hope for them both.
The Year of Living Hopefully 