Today was a tough day. I missed kindergarten graduation because I was in the Urgent Care getting an x-ray for a broken toe. My littles, who were with me at the Urgent Care, made this as hard as possible. It hurts to walk. They were running all over the place.
They continued running off in the parking lot at the school when we tried to make the last few minutes. Running off happened inside the school. And normally, I would grab those kids, and carry them with one under each arm. But my toe is slightly broken, and I couldn’t carry even one of them while walking.
(As a side note, these two insited on having their weight measured during my appointment and they are 35 lbs and 45 lbs, or 15.5 kg and 20 kg respectively. They are 80 lbs combined! That is a lot of excess weight for my poor little toe.)
Focusing on Joy
But then, I thought about how much fun it was going to be to tell the story later. And then, I felt joy. I felt pain and joy at the same time. When I was trying to manage the running away, and I focused on how other people percieved me, it gave me anxiety. When I focused on the absurdness of it all, it made me smile. I felt pressure and frustration and silly all at the same time.
When I missed the graduation and got there late, I felt like I had missed out on an opportunity to show my kindergartener that I’m there for him. When I focused on “hey, I showed up even though I was late, and I showed up even though I had a broken toe”, I felt like I shared a memorable moment with my son that no one can reproduce. It’s special. It’s ours.
I don’t need to invalidate the other feelings. I don’t have to make the other feelings go away before I can feel joy. I also don’t need to scramble for joy to fix the brokeness I feel inside. I can simply feel both. Actually, when I’m trying to numb away a painful feeling, I end up numbing away joyful feelings too. Opening myself to joy, means opening up myself to feeling pain. But, I can make it through the pain when I focus on joy.
