Monday, March 24, 2008

dancing walrus!!

Nuh-uh! A dancing walrus!



Easter was hard for me this year, I had a bad feeling all day about easter in general because I'm so sad about my family being how it is. I feel so disconnected no matter how hard I've tried. I reconciled yesterday with having an angry easter and reminded myself (at times, tried to convince myself) that it's perfectly okay. It's a real struggle though. Then today my dear friend Julie told me "lent and easter have a real beauty to them but God encourages us to rage and mourn and easter shouldn't get in the way of it."

It was good to hear that because I've been learning that rage and mourning have a beauty to them too. Even though people tell children damaging things like "don't be upset" and "have a happy heart." Saying this to kids and saying it to yourself (which I'm guilty of) marginalizes feelings that are valid. It's not fun to have bad feelings but it's just fine. I'm teaching myself and my kids that as well. All while trying to give myself a ton of grace. It's not instinctive.
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2 comments:

bandwidow said...

first of all that dancing walrus made me smile.

second of all, i think your friend has good advice.

third of all i'm proud of you for taking the bull by the horns and giving yourself and your children permission to live with even the angry feelings. and demonstrating the struggle to work through them. labeling them has proven to be useful for me and ella. it's fine to have every feeling of the rainbow, it's what you do with them that can be damaging for you and others. but that's hard and overwhelming sometimes.

March 24, 2008 at 2:39 PM
Simone said...

I totally know what you mean and I've seen it in practice when Lolly broke that bubbling science toy. He was SO mad and you didn't invalidate his feelings, but reminded him that Lolly didn't mean to do it. She apologised, he didn't accept right away, but eventually he did. It was beautiful.

Just like where there's a up, there's a down, where there's hot, there's cold, if people don't allow themselves to experience pain and aggravation, they wont TRULY appreciate when everything is good.

March 24, 2008 at 6:35 PM

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