The Blessed Quarantine - I know you are, but what am I?

I don't know about you, but when I hear (or say, for that matter) the words "I know you are, but what am I" it's always in Pee Wee Herman's high pitched voice of the 80's. The ridiculousness of that come back to any insult made it literally impossible to argue with someone. I mean, come on, what do you say in response to that? Usually when the "I know you are, but what am I?" card was played the user simply kept saying it in response to any additional insult that could/would be hurled at them so the other person, just gave up. It was like trying to argue with a tape recorder. 

As a woman in my forties, I really thought that this saying could never be anything but an absurd taunt used by a child to make someone else feel silly. The other day, I realized this was wrong. We have a lot of big personalities in our home. All four of us are very opinionated and a bit outspoken...I know, I know, that's shocking, but it's true.  This can create an intense situation at times, especially if we aren't all seeing eye to eye. Now, add to that the fact that three of us are spending basically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without much contact with anyone else and two of those three are middle schoolers. As is true with most teenagers, the 14 year old female offspring often does not agree with the things the parental units say and expect. Don't get me wrong, she's a good kid, but she's a 14 year old. It's literally her job to figure out how to be her own person and in the process she has to express the fact that we, as her parents, often set boundaries she does not want to live within. The lack of time apart and actual reduction in physical space between us makes some of these boundaries seem even tighter. When you put all of this together and stir it up a little with a "minor" frustration, it can become a major meltdown. One day, not too long ago, we had one of those meltdowns. 

When I discovered that female offspring was upset about an interaction between her and her male parental unit, I decided to put my skills as a mediator to work, I mean after all I teach students about conflict resolution all the time, so of course I could help my own family with a conflict. Yeah, not so much. Within minutes, there was yelling and crying and storming off in different directions. At one point I was honestly confused about how we had gotten to where we were. I didn't understand why the conflict resolution didn't work. There are steps for resolving conflict and the parties involved are supposed to listen to me because I know what I'm doing in this area. Well, it's really not the same when it's family instead of students and I totally didn't take that into consideration. As the people were yelling and crying and storming off in different directions, I said things that I shouldn't have said. I responded to the situation from a perspective of  "I'm right about this and you need to listen to me" instead of helping them hear each other...or for that matter, hearing what they were saying. At some point, we all sort of stormed off to our own spaces. 

Personally, I took refuge in the kitchen with a sink full of dirty dishes and my headphones blasting music to drown out everything else going on around me. Washing dishes isn't fun, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a bit cathartic. There are some things that I find relaxing because I can see the results immediately. Doing dishes is one of those things, so I decided to attack the sink of dirty dishes and feel some sense of accomplishment. I started doing the dishes and muttering to myself about how wrong they both were during this process and how they should have listened to me. I replayed the conversation over and over again in my head, picking apart the points when the other two should have responded differently and how they should have listened to each other/me. I analyzed the points of selfish irrational responses on their parts. I mentally found each flaw in how the two of them presented themselves. Then I heard the little voice inside that I don't really like to listen to say "but did you listen?". 

Suddenly, the conversation replaying in my head sounded a little different. Suddenly, the analysis wasn't about what the other two did wrong or when they didn't listen. In fact, most of the words they said to each other were no longer playing at a volume I could even really hear, but the words I said were screaming in my ears. The accusations I hurled at both my female offspring and my husband were suddenly bouncing around inside my head as loudly as possible, but no longer aimed at either of them. 

That moment was hard. I hadn't listened to either of them. I hadn't heard when my very independent, intelligent girl had said "please, I don't want to do this" because I was convinced I knew better. I was convinced that this had to happen. I didn't listen when my husband tried to explain his side of the situation because I didn't like how he was explaining things. I got really angry because no one was listening to me, but I wasn't listening to them either. 

As I finished the dishes, my husband came in the house and went to our daughter's room. She was working on something for school (which was adding to the frustration because it was confusing for her). I heard him ask her about what she was working on and then I heard him say "hey come here, let's talk". The two sat on her bed talking. Eventually they curled up, hugging and fell asleep.

Later that evening, there were hugs and unspoken apologies. Usually I feel like there has to be discussion and resolution to the situation, but I let my husband and female offspring take the lead on this one. They just wanted hugs and loving smiles to end the conflict, so I went with that. See, I'm really good at analyzing the situation and talking the problem out. I've always considered myself good at self-analysis too. My dad was awesome at helping me reflect on problems and see what parts I was responsible for, but I never really learned that reflection doesn't always have to look like I think it should. Sometimes, reflection can be simply recognizing that you can't have the conversation right now and walking away until you can. 

I believe very, very strongly that it is not my job to judge others, but often that is harder to do than to say. I find that when my family is involved it gets exponentially harder, but as this situation was coming to a resolution, I was reminded of a great Bible verse. (I'm bad at remembering verses, so please forgive me if this isn't quoted perfectly) Why do you pay attention to the speck in your brother's eye, but ignore the log in your own? It's really easy to notice how much someone else is messing up, without taking stock of your errors. However, if you stop and breathe for just a minute you might just realize that the question you really need to ask is I KNOW you are, but what am I? The answer to that question might not be one you really enjoy figuring out, but it will be one that teaches you how to pay attention to the log in your own eye before you worry about the spec in your brother's (or your daughter's or your husband's).