Growing here

Sometimes I can be such a rip. At Alder's #4 birthday party - a party Sarah threw at her own house, not mine, and a party I looked forward to almost as much as the birthday boy himself - I started ordering all 3 of my dauthers around like the queen of Sheba. I was even starting to honk my own self off. I get like that when I'm stressed out. Micromanaging details so I feel less out of control. Wish I could stop it. Sometimes I even apologize before hand when I see something tough on the horizon. I'm about to give you a really hard time. I don't want to, I'll try to behave, but I'll probably still take it out on you some way or other. I apologize in advance because I don't mean to do it.

I'm relating lately to my dad's self described foolish wish that I didn't love so many people so much. These last several days, I spent a lot of time at relationship tasks - funeral, birthday, tornadoe, hosting family from out of town... My favorite thing is tending to and factoring in the lives of my loved ones. Giving care. Honoring, respecting and valuing them. I'm so grateful to do that. And sometimes when it's like this, all at once plus tornadoes, I have to really work at taking care of myself as well. No good to others if I don't take care of myself. In fact, even if I'm taking good care of myself, I can still sometimes be a total rip, no good to others - to put it mildly - until I recover again.

There's always tension between me, you and us, and we need to be aware of all three to properly tend to them. I read a wonderful article about microboundaries, several of which I violated in the last many days. We violate others' microboundaries when we:

tell a loved one what to feel
claim to know what he feels
assume we know her thoughts, motives, wishes
negate or contradict his thoughts, wishes or feelings
speak for or tell the other what she feels
criticize his family of origin or friends
assume her experience of the same thing is the same as mine

In every difficulty there is opportunity for personal growth. I've been recently reminded that I still have plenty of personal growing to do. Wishing you fewer opportunities to learn to respect others' microboundaries, not too many opportunities to self correct when you mess it up, but the will to do it. XOXOXO