Are there things that stick in your mind? I recall hearing Dr. Laura say many years ago that "people never change". What the heck could she mean? Anyway, ever since I heard her say that I've had an underlying "search" going for examples of people changing. And the other night I startled myself by realizing that I am one of them.
My neighbor Rosemary and I have been friends since my older kids were little, but we only see one another in the summer due to our school year-intense jobs. Saturday night she happened by on her walk and I invited her to come up to sit on the porch for a bit. As she sat down, Sergei was being picked up for his dog-walking job. In a few minutes, Ilya and a friend from across the block came running through a few yards and into the house. Not long after, a van arrives, spewing out four loudly chattering Russian girls. A couple of Russian school moms had taken the girls to the Ionia Fair and they were dropping Anastasia off (of course, all the girls needed to go into the house before continuing home). When I finally sat back down, Rosemary commented on how different my life must be now from the days when I simply had two quiet, compliant children. I hadn't thought of it before, and yet I realized - yes; things are SO different.
No longer a perfectionist... One thing Rosemary and I always have had in common is this perfectionistic tendency. Suddenly it struck me that undoubtedly she has noticed, simply from the look of our yard and porch, that something has changed for me! Garden tools left out, a cardboard box sitting on the porch steps day after day, projects uncompleted, flowers unplanted.....in fact, a few totally empty flower beds. All attest to the fact that things have changed. I have to admit that if the yard is bad, the inside is worse. I had a bit of an awakening - suddenly "seeing things" through Rosemary's eyes. I hadn't even remembered the degree to which I used to revel in my pretty, clean and tidy home. It is tidy no more. I aim for clean and don't always make it.
No longer a decorator... No longer do I pick up "Old House Journal" when I get the chance. I have lowered standards in terms of home decor, to say the least! Though, I expect that if I wasn't caring for four kids and paying off adoption debt, our faded sheets and towels would have been replaced long ago. We used to have a pretty, matched set of china. No longer. Any two matching items are a surprise. The upholstery is worn....OK, even stained here and there. Rugs are threadbare. Linoleum needs replacing.
But, it is more than just the outer things that have changed.
No longer so controlling... I have loosened up. Partly it is realizing that raising children is not an exact science. I was hyper-controlling with my older two. No TV - almost ever. We had a TV, but it was on the third floor, where it was hotter than heck in summer and miserably cold in winter. They had to ask permission to go up and watch a religious video from church. That was a treat! The computer was for parents or for educational purposes. For safety's sake, they were only allowed to play in the backyard..... When they were 15 or 16 (I am not exaggerating!) I allowed them to have radios and play music, but the rule was - if I heard it, they'd lose it.
Now we are pretty loose about the computers, and the TV....and there is a TV in the LIVING ROOM, for heaven's sake! There is an xbox. There is a sound system in Sergei's room.
No longer so tense... Startled, I realize that I've become a lot more mellow. Not all of those strictures with my older kids were simply for their protection. A lot of them were for my protection! I couldn't bear to hear "background noise" (like TV and radio).... How can it be that those things don't bother me much at all, anymore? I actually took a nap yesterday afternoon with Russian techno music pounding through the ceiling.
No longer as protective.... I used to be so worried about the children's moral influences. Well, I suppose that when your children had all kinds of influences which you couldn't control for years before you got them - and they are still wonderful, and adorable - you figure that those things perhaps don't matter as much as you thought they did. And Aidan and Lydia, while very good people, are quite happy living in the contemporary culture, listening to music and watching TV - their early years did make them readers, but they seem to enjoy popular culture as much as the people whose parents didn't protect them from it. Furthermore, they are not a priest and a nun. What can I say?
Rosemary's interpretation is that I have received so many graces. Yes; in some ways, yes. When I let the kids eat in the living room, watch TV, listen to music - I realize - I am not as selfish. When I allow them to run around the neighborhood, take long walks, have friends over whose parents are not pillers of our parish - I am more trusting in God. We don't eat out as often (almost never); I never buy cappuccino anymore; frankly, I don't have very nice clothes; no time for luxurious baths; no time to enjoy novels apart from those I read to the kids - my reading time is focused on "attachment" books. I think I am a lot less self-indulgent and a lot more self-disciplined.
However....just looking at the surface what do we see? A tumble-down house, with a broken basement window, surrounded by a scraggly yard. Kids in and out, sometimes climbing on the roof, hanging out of the third-floor window; playing in the street since the front yard is far too small; belongings not carefully put away, but strewn about the lawn and porch. No discernable sense of order or organization. Dinted cars always in the driveway since the garage seems to be full of bags of leaves which missed the spring pick-up. And don't forget the pit bull staring out the window!
It's not a very attractive picture, to say the least especially when you add in occasional yelling, crying, slamming doors. I'm glad that Rosemary could see past the outer layer to the goodness inside. I doubt everyone does.
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