Time is an amazing resource, you either have plenty of it or wish you had more.
The space between the time we start and, say for example today when I realised I'd arrived, takes so long to happen but seems to arrive all at once.
If you're wondering what today is, it's the day I've been waiting for. It's no special day to anyone else, it's not day of celebration in the typical sense.
Today is the day I write about a breakthrough, the breakthrough of a certain child in my life that has exchanged a hairy eyeball with a loving one. It is possible that I may just have cracked the armoured exterior after months of stress and struggle - but I'm here. I think. Maybe.
How We Got Here
I realise I may have started this blog a little late, perhaps I should clarify that eldest hasn't really displayed that warm, fuzzy feeling inside when he's with me - and he's not even trying to pretend.
Littlest brat is different, he's accepted me from day one, I'm the aunty he wraps his arms around and smothers with kisses. Right from the word 'Go!' eldest has always been visibly torn between letting me in and being 'faithful' to mom by despising me just as much as she does. And if you knew her, it's a lot. A lot!
If you had asked me to start this blog a couple months earlier, I would have had a plethora of content to fuel at least 20 or so decent angry posts, ones filled with resentment and questions as to why and how I got involved with someone elses 2 children instead of my own. Seeing that I started writing this far into my journey, I guess my role is in fact to help others understand their role in a blended family.
So how did we get here? When did I realise the breakthrough with said angry, Piranha child? How do I know that it's permanent, authentic love for me and not just a sick ploy to play with my emotions? Honestly, I don't know. But the good news is that I do know I've hit the proverbial gold mine with this corner I've turned and I'm so excited to share it with you.
1. I let him think I didn't care about what he thought of me.
OMG do I care. Over the last 7.5 months I've cared more about this little boy's acceptance of me than completing my outstanding logbook for my personal income tax.
I had to respect his pain, his skepticism of me and his timing - yes, his timing. I had to ignore the shoulder shrug I felt every time I extended a gentle hand toward him. I had to swallow knots every time he went to bed and didn't willingly say goodnight. What was there not to love about me, why did he hate me so much? I persevered through my own emotions because that's what love does, love doesn't quit.
2. I had to let love come out of my mouth. Even though I was thinking it, he wasn't hearing it. Isn't it ironic that when you're being openly rejected you still have to find a place within to pour out love from you mouth and mean it, I think they call the former pride and the latter, love. I learned that there are some adults in my life that needed my verbal recognition too - he was my mirror.
I realised that while I was so busy playing with his younger brother, laughing and joking - he wasn't getting any of my positive affirmation. I had learned to keep him at arms length, waiting for him to warm to me. What I didn't realise is that my absence of contact and emotional availability was separating us even further.
So I let him into my heart and treated his wounded soul with large doses of love along with physical and verbal affirmations. He didn't need fixing for the sake of it, he needed time and patience. Not the person his mother may have him believe I am, rather the kind person I know I am.
It took some time but I started with the simple things, kinda like the way you woo your partner in the very beginning stages of your romance. I bandaged his grief with back tickles at night before bed and praised him for his soccer match victories with an enthusiasm that I had to muster from the deepest part of my authentic self. It wasn't that I was insincere, it was that a part of me often felt like my inner child said, "I'm not your friend anymore!" and would want to stick out her tongue in his direction.
Instead, the adult in me had to sit that child down and take over. None of this is personal even though it feels like it.
In the end love won, love always wins.
3. When the going got tough, I had to stay fair.
Love is in my opinion, the opposite of fear. There were moment's when I had to stay firm and consistent in my disapproval's as well as my praises toward him and his behaviour.
There were times when I was tempted to throw in the towel and let my new-found bond get in the way of fairness and diplomacy, like when you know that the bully at your school is wrong but you give her your approval anyway by smiling as he turns from the crying child she just abused.
In being fair in my views I gained his respect even when I was afraid I would have lost him forever. When he was wrong, I told him. When he was right, we high fived.
4. I had to learn to listen.
To him, to them. To their day, to their fears, to their tall stories and pipe dreams. My role isn't to just dictate opinionated facts in their direction as an adult, but rather guide them with love ever so gently towards fuller understanding as they approach adulthood.
When you put yourself in their shoes, children spend so much of their time being silenced. Teachers tell them to keep quiet, adults tell them to keep quiet. Children live in a world of censorship, "learning their place in society" while very few people listen - really, listen.
So, when they speak I look them in the eye with my fullest attention (which is very difficult for me to give most adults). I give them options, respect their choices and ask their opinions while I watch the questions stir inside their minds in a quest of self discovery.
I disagree with decency and grace when I point out the immaturity of certain thought patterns. How their father and I deal with each other, with conflict and with them, reaffirms confidence, boundaries and healthy coping mechanisms. All of these things come from listening, not just hearing. I listen to what they say even when they aren't speaking, being attentive is what makes one a good parent.
5. I had to accept myself.
I'll never forget sitting in the front seat of our car and singing outlandishly and without apology to 101 Nursery Rhymes I had downloaded off iTunes just for them. Eyes rolling in the back of his head, eldest tells me that I'm weird. Weird!!!
Every part of my heart grimaced at the apparent rejection I was dealt.
"He thinks I'm weird, OMG, he thinks I'm abnormal"
I remember panicking in silence while contemplating whether to admit to his observation or hide it. So I smiled, drew a deep breath and calmly responded with, "Isn't it just awesome!" trying so hard to hide the pensive look on my face.
He stared back at me with disapproval, I may as well have been made of glass. It was as if every flaw and insecurity had been drawn to the surface of my face and manifested through the tiny blood vessels under my skin.
It wasn't that I was ashamed of my quirkiness, it was that he saw it as a flaw. I was wide open and vulnerable, chirping and acting out "The Wheels on the Bus" and he comes back at me with an assault on my character! I embraced my authenticity, I am in fact, quirky as hell. It would be a sad and boring contrast if I sat with laced fingers on my lap and didn't speak a word.
6. I had to giggle my way through to him - adults already have a bad rep for being boring and serious. This one took me a while, when we are laughing we are also vulnerable. Laughter really is the best medicine - for everything - including winning over children. It's a safe space for bonding and being deemed 'cool' by the little humans in our lives.
Tonight I did a ceremony just for him. His lips were dry and he wanted to use my lip balm. I got up from the dining table and dug through our hidden medicine cabinet as I beckoned the family to stand around him.
"Do you, Poopy Pants, Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, Zippy Toes accept this token of love in the form of a miniature Vaseline tub?", I holler in a booming voice. "Yes!", he giggles.
"And do you, Poopy Pants, Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, Zippy Toes promise to cherish and keep safe this token of love?", I continue. "Yes!", he retorts back in a fuller chuckle.
"Then, it shall be yours!" I declare as I pass him the mini Vaseline tub to take to school the next day. Humour is a blessing and the funny bone is connected to the heart.
No one mentioned the perseverance clause
Fast forward a couple months and here we are.
Last weekend he returned from a long weekend with his mother. He seemed visibly detached from the world and nonchalant about being back home for the week. He was ice cold toward me, more-so than ever.
I went to my partner with my concerns, "I'm worried about him, he's worse than he's ever been", I fretted while at the dinner table. It was as if he had reverted back to day one - and then over the next few days, this little boy went from "Drop dead" to "Help me, I need you".
I don't know when it was exactly but I think we broke through a few days later. Today I put a note in his lunchbox that said, "You're special to me, I love you and have a good day". Again I had hesitated to include it in his lunchbox, the fear of rejection so real.
Tonight at the table he said nothing, he hardly acknowledged it when I brought it up. What the hell happened to the big 180 he did? Why is he shrugging it off as if it meant nothing? What were you trying to prove with all the clutching onto me when I said goodnight this week, the laughter and jokes we shared and all the random hugs? I thought we were getting closer!
His dad insists on further evidence of this secret note - I hadn't told him and he's curious now.
Eldest quietly gets up and scratches through his lunchbox. "I got your note", he says, "I even replied!". He fights the embarrassed smirk on his face as he hands me the note I left him.
As I unraveled the little brown jotter page covered with evidence of peanut butter and syrup, there in the top right hand corner stood my breakthrough.
"I love you too".
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