When my friend Nicole asked me a couple of months ago whether I’d like to train for a half-marathon with her, I thought about it, but not for very long.
I knew it would be a good challenge for me. It would knock me out of the general complacency I’ve developed as a runner: yes, I do this official streak thing where I run a mile or more every day and have for almost five years now, but it’s been a while since I tried something that really made me push my limits.
And I knew I could probably succeed, if I followed her training schedule. Back in 2003, for a period of about six months, I did a 13-mile run once a week. That was almost a decade ago, but I think I still have the capacity for it.
Moreover, even going beyond the questions of whether I had or could develop the physical ability to run a 13-mile race, the idea of doing this supported my belief in setting goals and challenges of all kinds for oneself. Much about my life has grown comfortable recently, and for that I’m grateful: with my work, my household, my personal relationships, much has seemed blessedly easy lately. Maybe it was time to push the envelope, to find a new way to make myself stretch beyond my comfort zone.
Yet after thinking all of these thoughts fairly briefly, I said no. I admitted that I really just didn’t feel like pushing myself to run a lot longer than I was accustomed to, and I didn’t want to put in the time that training would consume, either. Even if my daily life isn’t overly taxing these days, it’s busy, and I didn’t want to take on something that would eat up the minutes and hours of peaceful weekend mornings.
Still, as Nicole updated me weekly on her training, I felt twinges of envy. Nicole considered herself a beginner when she started occasionally running with me; it was with me that she first ran four miles, five miles, six miles, and she gave me credit for motivating her by example to do it. Now she was surpassing my mileage every weekend.
But I still didn’t want to do it, even though I was a little disappointed in myself for feeling that way. It would be a great time to take on a training challenge, an ideal time to push my body to new physiological and athletic benchmarks. Building up to do something new like a half-marathon would probably give me all kinds of new insights and modes of self-awareness, I suspected. And yet I just didn’t want to do the running, to make myself be out on the road for more than an hour at a stretch, to test myself anew week after week, in preparation for a single event in July that I might possibly not even be able to complete when the time came.
I resigned myself to the fact that sometimes we’re ready to take on a new challenge and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes, despite being able to see so vividly the possible advantages of setting out on a conquest, it’s the right time not for new conquests but for accepting self-imposed limits, for admitting that time and comfort are more important priorities at the moment than conquering personal frontiers.
So yesterday morning I set out on an easy four-mile run. I just wanted to enjoy the peaceful sunny Sunday morning, not work hard. Four miles would be a breeze, I knew. Easy, enjoyable, relaxing.
Nearly two miles in, though, I saw Nicole running toward me. I knew it was her nine-mile day; without meaning to, I’d been keeping track of her training schedule in my mind and remembering what week she was up to each Sunday.
If I turned back at the two-mile mark as planned, I wouldn’t even be running half her distance.
And just realizing that was enough to motivate me to add on an extra mile. Five miles is still not a big deal, but at least I was pushing myself beyond what I’d planned to do, and that felt good.
I ran five miles and savored every moment of it. So I suppose in the end, the lesson is that both parts are true. Yes, it’s okay to admit when you just feel like resting on your laurels and not taking on new challenges: going with what’s comfortable and easy once in a while instead of feeling forever compelled to overcome new hurdles is a reasonable choice.
And yet it’s also good to find challenges wherever and whenever you can, and take the opportunities that come along.
Running five miles isn’t particularly difficult for me, but the salient fact was that I’d set out for four. Running five instead was pushing myself just a little bit, and feeling motivated by someone else’s hard work to try to do likewise.
It’s no half-marathon, but it was a good way for me to put in just a little extra effort on a sunny Sunday morning, and a good way to remind myself that sometimes, just a little is all you need.
Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2012
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Early-winter running
Suddenly, it’s cold.
Not cold by Far North terms, and not even cold by winter-in-New-England terms. But cold for late autumn, which it technically is for another twelve days or so. I’ve been waking before dawn this week to temperatures still in the twenties; even in the middle of the day the mercury doesn’t hit forty. For early December, that’s chilly.
And I’m a little alarmed by how hard I’m finding it to adjust to cold-weather running, even for the twenty-five or thirty minutes I’m out doing my daily weekday two-miler. I’ve run in far colder weather than this, I remind myself. I’ve run in single-digit wind chills, blizzards, frigid temperatures. Two years ago, during a January weekend in northeast Connecticut, I ran five miles on a morning so cold my eyelashes froze.
This isn’t like that. Not at all. But somehow after the nine months of spring, summer and fall, I’ve forgotten the feeling of a chilly wind on my face, a cold breeze blowing down my neck. Even temperatures in the twenties feel startling to me right now.
But I know I have to get used to it. Winter hasn’t even begun yet, and with more than 1,200 days of consecutive running under my belt, I’m not planning to stop this winter unless unforeseen circumstances make it necessary. The cold weather is just setting in; I need to remember all over again how to layer the fleece and forge ahead into the wind. I need to renew the mindset that it’s good to feel a frigid wind as you start out because that means it will be behind you on the return, and I need to get reacquainted with the itchy, damp feeling of a sweaty wool hat on my head.
Besides, there are positive aspects to this cold snap. Once I’ve settled into the rhythm of the run, I find it invigorating. There’s a pure, icy edge to the air that makes each frosty breath feel cleansing. And the frozen ground is firm under my feet, even on the sections of the driveway that are muddy once the temperature rises into the forties.
So far, no snow has fallen, and that’s fine with me too. Snow is so pretty, but I’m not fond of the wet or slushy or slippery aspects of running in the snow. But that will come too in time, and then, just as with the cold, I’ll struggle with it at first, then remind myself I’ve coped with snow plenty of times before, and then gradually re-acclimate myself to its challenges and pleasures: the feathery fluffiness of snow beneath my running shoes, the muffled squeak as I run in tire tracks, the soft thump of running in powder.
Before I was a “streak runner” committed to running every day, I used to take the whole winter off. I’m glad that now I try to run through the cold and the snow. It’s challenging. It’s invigorating. And it reminds me that every condition – in running and otherwise – has its positives and negatives, its challenges and rewards.
Not cold by Far North terms, and not even cold by winter-in-New-England terms. But cold for late autumn, which it technically is for another twelve days or so. I’ve been waking before dawn this week to temperatures still in the twenties; even in the middle of the day the mercury doesn’t hit forty. For early December, that’s chilly.
And I’m a little alarmed by how hard I’m finding it to adjust to cold-weather running, even for the twenty-five or thirty minutes I’m out doing my daily weekday two-miler. I’ve run in far colder weather than this, I remind myself. I’ve run in single-digit wind chills, blizzards, frigid temperatures. Two years ago, during a January weekend in northeast Connecticut, I ran five miles on a morning so cold my eyelashes froze.
This isn’t like that. Not at all. But somehow after the nine months of spring, summer and fall, I’ve forgotten the feeling of a chilly wind on my face, a cold breeze blowing down my neck. Even temperatures in the twenties feel startling to me right now.
But I know I have to get used to it. Winter hasn’t even begun yet, and with more than 1,200 days of consecutive running under my belt, I’m not planning to stop this winter unless unforeseen circumstances make it necessary. The cold weather is just setting in; I need to remember all over again how to layer the fleece and forge ahead into the wind. I need to renew the mindset that it’s good to feel a frigid wind as you start out because that means it will be behind you on the return, and I need to get reacquainted with the itchy, damp feeling of a sweaty wool hat on my head.
Besides, there are positive aspects to this cold snap. Once I’ve settled into the rhythm of the run, I find it invigorating. There’s a pure, icy edge to the air that makes each frosty breath feel cleansing. And the frozen ground is firm under my feet, even on the sections of the driveway that are muddy once the temperature rises into the forties.
So far, no snow has fallen, and that’s fine with me too. Snow is so pretty, but I’m not fond of the wet or slushy or slippery aspects of running in the snow. But that will come too in time, and then, just as with the cold, I’ll struggle with it at first, then remind myself I’ve coped with snow plenty of times before, and then gradually re-acclimate myself to its challenges and pleasures: the feathery fluffiness of snow beneath my running shoes, the muffled squeak as I run in tire tracks, the soft thump of running in powder.
Before I was a “streak runner” committed to running every day, I used to take the whole winter off. I’m glad that now I try to run through the cold and the snow. It’s challenging. It’s invigorating. And it reminds me that every condition – in running and otherwise – has its positives and negatives, its challenges and rewards.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
It's only a minor problem -- but I'm not sure I can solve it
My father is fond of saying that some problems have no solutions. Right now I’m facing one of them. It’s not a really big problem. It’s just a challenge that I don’t think can be successfully met. And yet to even say those words sounds so somehow un-American. Doesn’t everything from my education to my country of birth to my religion inform me that challenges exist to be met? Am I really ready to say there are cases when simply giving up is the right thing to do?
To make a long story short, last spring our school’s parent volunteer association decided that rather than having Walk-to-School Day be a twice-a-year event, we should form a Walk-to-School Committee whose mission would be “to make walking or biking to school a safe and regular habit.” In other words, something that happens all the time, not just on two designated days that include raffle prizes and lots of ceremony. And they asked me to chair this committee.
I pulled off a bang-up launch. On October 5, despite impending rain, nearly 200 kids in Carlisle’s elementary and middle school grades walked or biked to school. The grades with the highest and second-highest rate of participation won cool prizes. Fourteen volunteers staffed the crosswalks to ensure safe passage.
But the event’s triumphs, ironically enough, may have turned out to also be its downfall. As successful as it was deemed to be, I’m now stuck with the suspicion that it takes three months of planning, $50 worth of prizes and fourteen volunteers to make it possible for kids to walk to school.
My committee wants to make Walk-to-School Day a weekly event. And we can do it without the prizes and heraldry. It’s the fourteen volunteers that I can’t seem to get past. Carlisle simply isn’t a walking town. Our town doesn’t have traffic lights: walkers are strictly at the mercy of the judgment of drivers. The new footpath system is wonderful as far as making it possible to walk somewhere other than in the roadway on the main streets, but the cars that pass through the center aren’t expecting to stop for crossing foot traffic. The side streets have neither sidewalks nor footpaths, and many of them don’t even have adequate shoulders, at least adequate enough to shelter pedestrians during rush hour.
I put out an appeal for adult volunteers to help with a weekly Walk-to-School plan, but the response was scanty, and I can’t say I blame anyone. Most parents of school-aged children I know are already booked to the hilt with volunteer activities, whether or not they also hold down full-time jobs that might prevent them from being available at the walk-to-school hour. Some of the town’s older residents who do not have young children in the schools provided a great deal of help at our Walk-to-School launch, but I can’t blame them either for not wanting to make this a weekly commitment.
So I’m stuck with how to admit that I might not be able to do this. It would be a much better story – and a much more traditional one – if I rose up against the odds and showed that a safe walk-to-school program could be done. If the naysayers were someone other than me, over whom I could triumph in the face of their skepticism. The problem is the task is mine – and I’m also the one most skeptical.
It puts me in a problematic position. I’m not much of a hero if I say “Sorry, I tried to lead this effort but it’s not going to work.” That surely won’t put me in the annals of American mythology. After all, my friend Deborah faced down fifteen years of obstacles simply to get Carlisle’s footpath system installed. It doesn’t make me look very impressive if I can’t take the project the next step and ensure that they are used.
I haven’t given up yet, and at the same time, I see no evidence that I can make this work. In the end, I may have to be the anti-hero: the one who admits that sometimes a plan just can’t be pulled off. I don’t want that to be my role, and I’m not willing to give up yet. But it may be that Dad is right: some problems do not have solutions. As un-American as that may sound, it just may be true.
To make a long story short, last spring our school’s parent volunteer association decided that rather than having Walk-to-School Day be a twice-a-year event, we should form a Walk-to-School Committee whose mission would be “to make walking or biking to school a safe and regular habit.” In other words, something that happens all the time, not just on two designated days that include raffle prizes and lots of ceremony. And they asked me to chair this committee.
I pulled off a bang-up launch. On October 5, despite impending rain, nearly 200 kids in Carlisle’s elementary and middle school grades walked or biked to school. The grades with the highest and second-highest rate of participation won cool prizes. Fourteen volunteers staffed the crosswalks to ensure safe passage.
But the event’s triumphs, ironically enough, may have turned out to also be its downfall. As successful as it was deemed to be, I’m now stuck with the suspicion that it takes three months of planning, $50 worth of prizes and fourteen volunteers to make it possible for kids to walk to school.
My committee wants to make Walk-to-School Day a weekly event. And we can do it without the prizes and heraldry. It’s the fourteen volunteers that I can’t seem to get past. Carlisle simply isn’t a walking town. Our town doesn’t have traffic lights: walkers are strictly at the mercy of the judgment of drivers. The new footpath system is wonderful as far as making it possible to walk somewhere other than in the roadway on the main streets, but the cars that pass through the center aren’t expecting to stop for crossing foot traffic. The side streets have neither sidewalks nor footpaths, and many of them don’t even have adequate shoulders, at least adequate enough to shelter pedestrians during rush hour.
I put out an appeal for adult volunteers to help with a weekly Walk-to-School plan, but the response was scanty, and I can’t say I blame anyone. Most parents of school-aged children I know are already booked to the hilt with volunteer activities, whether or not they also hold down full-time jobs that might prevent them from being available at the walk-to-school hour. Some of the town’s older residents who do not have young children in the schools provided a great deal of help at our Walk-to-School launch, but I can’t blame them either for not wanting to make this a weekly commitment.
So I’m stuck with how to admit that I might not be able to do this. It would be a much better story – and a much more traditional one – if I rose up against the odds and showed that a safe walk-to-school program could be done. If the naysayers were someone other than me, over whom I could triumph in the face of their skepticism. The problem is the task is mine – and I’m also the one most skeptical.
It puts me in a problematic position. I’m not much of a hero if I say “Sorry, I tried to lead this effort but it’s not going to work.” That surely won’t put me in the annals of American mythology. After all, my friend Deborah faced down fifteen years of obstacles simply to get Carlisle’s footpath system installed. It doesn’t make me look very impressive if I can’t take the project the next step and ensure that they are used.
I haven’t given up yet, and at the same time, I see no evidence that I can make this work. In the end, I may have to be the anti-hero: the one who admits that sometimes a plan just can’t be pulled off. I don’t want that to be my role, and I’m not willing to give up yet. But it may be that Dad is right: some problems do not have solutions. As un-American as that may sound, it just may be true.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Running in the rain
Yesterday morning when my alarm went off at 5:30, I could hear a light patter of rain. Nearly three hours later, by the time I was ready to take Holly out to the bus and then start my run, it was a steady downpour.
As I used to tell Tim when he ran with me, running in the rain is tough only for the first five minutes. After that, you’re as wet as you’re going to get; it’s not going to become any worse. You just have to steel yourself for those first five minutes.
So yesterday, that’s what I did: steeled myself for the first five minutes of steady rain. And I discovered once again what I always discover when I urge myself out to run in a rainfall: it’s not that bad. The rain cools your skin as you run, and there’s no sun glare to contend with in your eyes. If you get hot, you can sluice rainwater off a low-hanging branch and pat it on your forehead and cheeks. Dodging puddles gives you practice at agility. In my case, where the dog likes to stop every twenty seconds or so to shake off the water, it gives me practice in quick stops as well; if I don’t put the brakes on myself and run in place while she shakes to her satisfaction, I trip over her.
The best part of running in the rain is finishing the run: entering a warm, dry house, knowing you didn’t let the rain put you off. You feel chilled in damp clothes, but warm inside, knowing you met the weather head-on and fit in a good workout.
True, that’s a little like the joke about “Why are you hitting yourself?” “Because it feels so good when I stop,” which my 12-year-old is at just the right age to find hilarious. Why run in the rain? Because it feels so good when you’re done. But in all honesty, that’s part of the appeal of running whether it’s raining or not: the sense of satisfaction and of conquering that comes when the run is finished. Whether or not it’s raining, running means slaying a certain kind of dragon every time you go out: the dragon of inertia. Running may be natural, but staying put is natural too, and preserving energy even more so. To head out on a run at any time is to say that you are willing yourself to overcome the urge to stay at rest. To head out on a run in the rain is to overcome a natural aversion to discomfort, wetness, chill.
Trivial as those dragons may be, it feels good to stare them down, overcome them, leave them in your wake. There are a lot of inner struggles I can’t conquer as easily as the wish to stay indoors when it’s running. Pushing myself out the door for a couple of miles in the rain makes me feel like I’ve overcome one tiny hurdle in my day. And having done that, maybe I can take on some bigger hurdles before the day, or the rain, ends.
As I used to tell Tim when he ran with me, running in the rain is tough only for the first five minutes. After that, you’re as wet as you’re going to get; it’s not going to become any worse. You just have to steel yourself for those first five minutes.
So yesterday, that’s what I did: steeled myself for the first five minutes of steady rain. And I discovered once again what I always discover when I urge myself out to run in a rainfall: it’s not that bad. The rain cools your skin as you run, and there’s no sun glare to contend with in your eyes. If you get hot, you can sluice rainwater off a low-hanging branch and pat it on your forehead and cheeks. Dodging puddles gives you practice at agility. In my case, where the dog likes to stop every twenty seconds or so to shake off the water, it gives me practice in quick stops as well; if I don’t put the brakes on myself and run in place while she shakes to her satisfaction, I trip over her.
The best part of running in the rain is finishing the run: entering a warm, dry house, knowing you didn’t let the rain put you off. You feel chilled in damp clothes, but warm inside, knowing you met the weather head-on and fit in a good workout.
True, that’s a little like the joke about “Why are you hitting yourself?” “Because it feels so good when I stop,” which my 12-year-old is at just the right age to find hilarious. Why run in the rain? Because it feels so good when you’re done. But in all honesty, that’s part of the appeal of running whether it’s raining or not: the sense of satisfaction and of conquering that comes when the run is finished. Whether or not it’s raining, running means slaying a certain kind of dragon every time you go out: the dragon of inertia. Running may be natural, but staying put is natural too, and preserving energy even more so. To head out on a run at any time is to say that you are willing yourself to overcome the urge to stay at rest. To head out on a run in the rain is to overcome a natural aversion to discomfort, wetness, chill.
Trivial as those dragons may be, it feels good to stare them down, overcome them, leave them in your wake. There are a lot of inner struggles I can’t conquer as easily as the wish to stay indoors when it’s running. Pushing myself out the door for a couple of miles in the rain makes me feel like I’ve overcome one tiny hurdle in my day. And having done that, maybe I can take on some bigger hurdles before the day, or the rain, ends.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Rise and shine -- but at the moment it's not easy
In one of those countless phases of child development that wax and wane, taking on paramount importance when you’re in the midst of them and then becoming forgotten within days after they subside, my 7-year-old and I are in a Difficult Mornings phase. For the past several days, it’s been torturous to get her out of the house in the morning, and it never fails to amaze me that after eleven years of parenting, there are situations like this to which I still haven’t figured out a solution. I’ve been getting kids ready to leave the house for daycare, preschool or regular school for well over a decade, I remind myself. How is it that I still have a problem with it?
When I complain about my own ineptitude to my husband, he’s always quick to remind me that for the two years I was working outside the house and he was responsible for morning departures, it all ran like clockwork. It always does when he’s in charge, because he simply brooks no dissent and takes no prisoners. Children are dressed, groomed, packed and ready to go when he starts the car because it never occurs to him – nor therefore to them – that there’s any other option.
Alas, not so with me. Now both Rick and Tim are gone by 7:30, and I have a whole fifty minutes alone with Holly to get her out the door. Yet the past several days have found me practically bursting a blood vessel as Holly stalls and dodges, sometimes for reasons of her own and sometimes for reasons I impose. She’s not dressed warmly enough. She’s wearing the same shirt as the day before. She didn’t brush her teeth yet. (My reasons.) She forgot the stuffed animal that she promised a friend could play with at recess. Her ponytail is fastened with a pink elastic and she likes only purple now. The dog needs to have her stomach scratched. (Holly’s reasons.)
I remind myself over and over again to choose my battles. Holly insists on fixing her own hair these days, and I tell myself it’s okay if her part is crooked and her pigtails mussed. But what about wearing the same shirt she wore the day before? Is that a battle worth fighting? I’m not sure. The ineffective tooth-brushing and my insistence that she go upstairs and do it again is definitely a battle worth fighting, as poor dental hygiene is serious business, but that doesn’t make it any less awful when we’re about to miss the bus and Holly is arguing with me about whether or not the use of toothpaste matters.
One problem with finding a solution to the challenge of leaving the house on time is that it’s hard to find an immediate bargaining chip. Unlike, say, not being ready to go to the playground, it’s not like I can say to Holly “If you don’t get ready immediately, we’re not going.” She has to go to school, and we both know it. Incentives based on after-school activities often seem too far off to have much impact, and at the age of seven, she’s a little beyond being motivated by a sticker chart. The fact is, she knows I’m going to be sure she gets to school one way or another, so it often seems like the onus is on me to get us out with any kind of efficiency, and without major temper tantrums on either of our parts.
Yesterday wasn’t much of a success, but maybe today will be better. Last night when all was calm before bedtime (interestingly, bedtime is not an issue these days; we read and then Holly goes to sleep, easy as that), she and I had a talk about it. I told her why I think it’s important to wear different clothes from one day to the next and why I’m certain it’s important to brush your teeth. She promised to get an earlier start on all of it next time.
The consolation as far as obstacles in schoolday morning routines is that you have so many chances to get it right. Five days a week, ten months out of the year. If yesterday didn’t go so well, I know I have the chance to make today go better. We’ll see if I can. And if not, I just remind myself that each stage passes in time. If now I’m getting apoplectic every morning insisting that Holly brush her hair and wear a fresh clean outfit, the day will quite likely come when she spends hours on her hair and clothing, and I’ll wonder what I ever worried about.
When Tim was just a few weeks old, a mother of a baby just a few months older said to me, “The bad phases pass quickly, and the good phases pass quickly. Whatever is going on with them changes, for better or worse.” True today just as it was eleven years ago. Today’s battles will yield in time to tomorrow’s battles, whatever they might be. And when that happens, I’ll remember that they too will pass in time. For now, I need to focus on the fact that it’s more important to have clean teeth than clean clothes, and that as long as I get the kids to school on time and safely and remember to kiss them before they climb onto the bus, the rest is just details.
When I complain about my own ineptitude to my husband, he’s always quick to remind me that for the two years I was working outside the house and he was responsible for morning departures, it all ran like clockwork. It always does when he’s in charge, because he simply brooks no dissent and takes no prisoners. Children are dressed, groomed, packed and ready to go when he starts the car because it never occurs to him – nor therefore to them – that there’s any other option.
Alas, not so with me. Now both Rick and Tim are gone by 7:30, and I have a whole fifty minutes alone with Holly to get her out the door. Yet the past several days have found me practically bursting a blood vessel as Holly stalls and dodges, sometimes for reasons of her own and sometimes for reasons I impose. She’s not dressed warmly enough. She’s wearing the same shirt as the day before. She didn’t brush her teeth yet. (My reasons.) She forgot the stuffed animal that she promised a friend could play with at recess. Her ponytail is fastened with a pink elastic and she likes only purple now. The dog needs to have her stomach scratched. (Holly’s reasons.)
I remind myself over and over again to choose my battles. Holly insists on fixing her own hair these days, and I tell myself it’s okay if her part is crooked and her pigtails mussed. But what about wearing the same shirt she wore the day before? Is that a battle worth fighting? I’m not sure. The ineffective tooth-brushing and my insistence that she go upstairs and do it again is definitely a battle worth fighting, as poor dental hygiene is serious business, but that doesn’t make it any less awful when we’re about to miss the bus and Holly is arguing with me about whether or not the use of toothpaste matters.
One problem with finding a solution to the challenge of leaving the house on time is that it’s hard to find an immediate bargaining chip. Unlike, say, not being ready to go to the playground, it’s not like I can say to Holly “If you don’t get ready immediately, we’re not going.” She has to go to school, and we both know it. Incentives based on after-school activities often seem too far off to have much impact, and at the age of seven, she’s a little beyond being motivated by a sticker chart. The fact is, she knows I’m going to be sure she gets to school one way or another, so it often seems like the onus is on me to get us out with any kind of efficiency, and without major temper tantrums on either of our parts.
Yesterday wasn’t much of a success, but maybe today will be better. Last night when all was calm before bedtime (interestingly, bedtime is not an issue these days; we read and then Holly goes to sleep, easy as that), she and I had a talk about it. I told her why I think it’s important to wear different clothes from one day to the next and why I’m certain it’s important to brush your teeth. She promised to get an earlier start on all of it next time.
The consolation as far as obstacles in schoolday morning routines is that you have so many chances to get it right. Five days a week, ten months out of the year. If yesterday didn’t go so well, I know I have the chance to make today go better. We’ll see if I can. And if not, I just remind myself that each stage passes in time. If now I’m getting apoplectic every morning insisting that Holly brush her hair and wear a fresh clean outfit, the day will quite likely come when she spends hours on her hair and clothing, and I’ll wonder what I ever worried about.
When Tim was just a few weeks old, a mother of a baby just a few months older said to me, “The bad phases pass quickly, and the good phases pass quickly. Whatever is going on with them changes, for better or worse.” True today just as it was eleven years ago. Today’s battles will yield in time to tomorrow’s battles, whatever they might be. And when that happens, I’ll remember that they too will pass in time. For now, I need to focus on the fact that it’s more important to have clean teeth than clean clothes, and that as long as I get the kids to school on time and safely and remember to kiss them before they climb onto the bus, the rest is just details.
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