Sadness

Sometimes I get sad, and I don’t really know why.  I’m not crying or depressed.  Just sad.

Last night I started a new book with Magoo.  One of my absolute favorite things in the world is hearing Magoo read.  She has read with such inflection since she was three.  It’s adorable.

But when we were about to start last night, she got a bit sad, and she told me that sometimes when she reads at school the kids laugh at her.

As I think any mom would, my blood pressure went through the roof, and it took every ounce of will power I had to let her air her feelings without instantly trying to fix them with praise and hugs and every positive word I could think of.

So she told me how it made her feel, and then I asked her why she thinks they laugh.  She told me that it’s whenever she reads a word like “poop” or some other word of that sort.

Now I’m not sure how often the word, “poop,” comes up in school reading, but instantly I recognized the problem.  Kids weren’t laughing at her.  They were laughing with her at funny content.  I explained this to her, telling her how it’s just like when we laugh when something funny happens in a book we are reading together.

This was a simple one.  I actually could fix it.  I could explain how no one really is laughing at her.  She might still be embarrassed, but I think she understood the important distinction.

And yet my heart still stayed heavy.  Every day she goes out into a world that doesn’t care so much about her feelings.  At this point, she’s surrounded by friends and teachers who truly care about her, but in the end, the world doesn’t exist to cater to her feelings.

And it shouldn’t.

And we’ve been dealing with some problems with Goosie.  At the point, she doesn’t know a problem exists.  But we do, and we are trying to figure out ways to make it better and help her through it, hoping it will take care of itself in due time.

While the odds are in her favor, sometimes it doesn’t clear up.  Sometimes it becomes a life long issue.

And I look at her.  I see her unbridled excitement.  I see her passion and her joy.  I see how very much that passion has to offer this world, and my heart breaks.  Because I know the world doesn’t look highly upon passion.  It honors reserve and coolness and detachment.  And she lives in a world of fire.

I pray that she maintains that fire even when the world tries to douse it.

I can’t fix the world.

And I think that’s where the sadness comes in.  I’ve always said that I’m not worried about my children’s weaknesses.  They, like us all, can learn to manage them.

No, what breaks my heart is their strengths.  Those little aspects of them that are sent pure from Heaven.  The parts that make them unique, special, perfect.

I always used to listen to people who told me that I can’t protect them from the world.  I have to help them toughen up to cope with this world.

And in some ways that’s true.

But I’m also starting to think that it’s equally important that I help them maintain that purity of spirit and personality.  They are gifts from God, and they need protecting.

I can’t protect them from everything.  I can’t shield them from a world they will spend their entire Earthly lives in.

But I can build them up.  I can celebrate their uniqueness.  I can create a refuge in myself that they can come to when the world gets too cold and the storms blow too strong.

In me, they can find the unconditional love this world will not give them.

I want to keep them mine.  I want to close our doors and let their beautiful little lights shine, unhindered and untainted by the world around us.  But there’s no point to a light shining in a box.  That light is made for the world, and to hide it is just as much of a crime as to stifle it.

So I sit here and walk the line between nurturance and exposure, knowing that the line cannot be perfectly walked and we will often fall too far to one side or another.

And perhaps that’s why I’m sad.  I’m an imperfect mom parenting in an imperfect world.

That’s tough to know sometimes.