The Power of “And”
“And”– three little letters, used so often we forget how important that word can be. My kids called it a sight word when they were learning to read, one they needed to know on sight, immediately. Three letters that connect two things—items, teams, people, animals, anything, and everything including feelings. Ahhh… feelings. They always complicate things, don’t they?
Have you ever known someone (or maybe you are someone) who had a particularly tough experience or are feeling some type of way and they immediately follow it up with “but it’s okay, I’m not complaining. I’m really lucky overall to have the opportunity.” What if, we stop saying “but” (another complicated word) and instead used “and.” For instance, what if I said that homeschooling had been really difficult this year, but I was so lucky to have that as an option, so I’m definitely not complaining, I instead said “I’m so grateful to have been able to homeschool Sass this year and it’s been really hard. Both are true. I’m so grateful for the time I spent with my Sassy girl and that I have a job lenient enough that I was able to keep her with me, safe, sound and content. That doesn’t mean though, that it was all roses and sunshine. It was hard. I cried. She cried. There were definitely days when she was cranky with me, and I was short with her.
Consider the stressed-out parent who says, I wish I could read a book or take a drive by myself; I’m worn out. But I love the kids so much and I wouldn’t trade one minute of parenthood. Friends, it is *so* normal to need a break and love your child more than anything you ever could have imagined. At some point we should have a conversation about expectations, but… I digress. We are always no less than two things. No matter how thin a paper is it always has two sides.
I have a friend who refers to it as “both and” not “either or” He was referencing religion at the time, but it holds true for almost everything in life. I thought about how the two are so intricately connected when I was trying to explain my feelings over my oldest daughter graduating the other day. I am so happy and proud and excited to see where this tiny turkey who spent so much time on my hip is going and my heart is broken at the loss of the days that I was her whole world and she trusted me with everything. And this gig, the one I wanted my whole life long, is over (not being her mom that’s for forever, just having young kids). It’s all of those things and more. I can’t even put it into words, a lot of those words would be “and.”
A friend of mine shared with me the other day that her dad (who has had a massive stroke and is cognitively diminished), is saying things that don’t make any sense. Things that are less than kind about another resident at the facility that he is at. Now he isn’t saying anything about his daughter per se, but they hit pretty close to home. After our conversation it has been sitting with me so much, I keep rolling over it. Yes, it’s him and it’s not. No, it’s not about her and yet—it is. I can’t help her through this, but I can sit with her in it and I can give power to the “and’ in her situation… that little tiny word is heavy and really hard.
Maybe it is time that we start reminding each other that you can feel two things at once and there is no wrong way to do that. Perhaps it is even more important to remind ourselves that we can be two things at once, or three or four or a hundred. The hard news is that there will never be a right way to do something that has to do with the human experience. The good part though is that there is no wrong way, either. We must stop allowing ourselves to believe that an emotion isn’t okay because we really are grateful to even have the opportunity to have the complaint in the first place. Maybe that’s the point: we need to learn to accept things as they roll in, feel all the feels, experience all the experiences and live all the life. Not “even” when it’s hard, but especially when it’s hard, because that really is how we grow. It’s a painful truth.
Life is hard and it is beautiful, not all aspects of it, of course. Some things are only awful, and that’s just as true. But maybe that’s the point; maybe we’re not called to constantly point out the beautiful but to embrace the complexities of life, more importantly to embrace each other when they’re not able to. Try not to remind each other constantly how lucky they are, they likely already know that; we just need to be seen when we are in the painful parts.
