A New Mantra

 “This is your show…

“You make it up as you go along…

“You are doing the best you can! Always.”

As I have stepped into being a new grandmother, this has become my mantra.

Oh, I have been a grandmother for some dozen or more years, but this time around I am invited into the intimacy of the multi-generational show. It has been a gorgeous, heart rending, respectful time filled with admiration and growth. And it has been filled with differences, dismay and questioning, hopefully internal!

Whenever we step into life’s mysteries we are forced by circumstance to reach within ourselves and find out what we are made of. In short, we grow. And in growing, of necessity, we change.

But what is our relationship with change? This is a question that I frequently pose to students at the beginning of our work together.

Some of us change only when our back is to the wall, when there appear to be no other options. Others of us sort of blow where the winds of change take us. Then we look around and try to figure out where we landed. What will we do now? Still others of us move into the future kicking and screaming. Some people, I am told, move forward with a calm grace, a confidence that whatever is coming they have the presence and skills to meet it.

Most of us, in my somewhat limited experience, are a combination of all of the above mixed into a hodgepodge. We see where life has landed us and we do what we can to make it work.

But returning to my new Grandmother role, here I am, a mother of some experience. I figure that I have some answers. After all, my kids made it to adulthood, right?

Well, yes but! Part of their making it to adulthood means that they have had the  confidence and trust in their own abilities to make their own decisions. That was one of the gifts of the way they were raised, right?

Hmm, but that’s exactly where the logic falls apart. If they are empowered to make their own decisions, and their decisions are wildly different from mine, what does that mean?

Maybe it means that they were raised to be their own people.

Maybe it means that they have developed critical thinking skills.

Maybe it means that they have unfolded their own way in the world. 

As a parent, these are worthy goals for one’s children. Even, as it turns out, when the outcome differs from anything I could imagine or visualize. Even where there are a few bumps along the way. Even when I learn to hold my tongue. 

Even when I (try to) control my eye rolls! Now that’s hard…

One of the many gifts of this journey is that I am learning a new definition of love. A love that respects rather than counsels. A love that transcends my personal beliefs and reaches towards the beliefs of my beloveds. Building bridges, one might say.

It rests on a sense of trust that I have done my bit in their formation and now it’s time to step back and watch the unique ways in which they flower. And appreciate that they do flower, whether I recognize the bloom or not. Flowers, like beloveds, don’t always turn out the way you think that they might!