“H can’t handle it.”
Four words. Four words that hold so much in them.
They hold limitations for H. As if she was not given this life with tools to live it. As if the God they worship hadn’t planned for us or her to have two places to land home. As if the plan for her must be wrong because we’re here messing it up.
They hold scarcity. That there isn’t room for her to have quality time with both halves of her being and be happy. As if there isn’t enough H for everyone to go around. The table is only made to hold H and her mother. The rest of us must sit to the side never getting a seat there.
They hold the absence of trust. Those words, once again, have us as a liability in her life. A hassle or a danger. We are the part that can be skipped when the tiniest excuse is found.
They hold fault. We must be the reason for all discord. Our existence derails the plan.
They hold laziness and lack of faith. As if we can’t parent her through the hard parts. As if something is wrong that she has to even feel them. As if the messy parts aren’t the true normal, vibrant sign that she’s paying attention to the many ways coming and going between her homes is simply bittersweet.
They hold a life that is not actually H’s. A life that doesn’t acknowledge how her heart is both places. Her laughter echo’s both places. She is loved at both places. It does not make room for her to just be home at both places. It doesn’t let her grow into herself at both places. She has lessons she’ll need from both of us, but without time and strife, she’ll never learn them. She’ll only be half of herself unless she’s allowed to go through all the things at all her places with all her people.
I could wish with Match every day for something better. We wish her to be a whole person with a full childhood. In the meantime, for H and our other children, we don’t make waves often. We swallow loss after loss after loss. We watch often without much fuss all the the little ways an email, a text, her voices claims there is, “respect” and emphasizes “our importance to H,” but actions never align.
We’re ready for better. Yet, these words, “H can’t handle it,” hold all the reasons peace is not a thing we get to have. As if that is the only truth. As if that’s not a starting point. The absolute-ness. The certainty they hold. That sentence holds no room to be untrue, to be unfair, nor to accept our experiences as a counter statement. The absoluteness of them leaves no room to find middle ground. It leave not room for both theories of thought when it comes to raising H. There will be no peace until H’s mother believes we’re vital in the same way she’s vital. Until we are allowed to bring normal hardship, struggle, and joy like all H’s relationships will hold in her life without it having to be avoided, mitigated, persecuted, or shamed for it.
Most importantly, “H can’t handle it,” is absent any believe H’s life was designed for her with us in it purposely. We are something she has to endure instead of an essential piece of her being. She is walking around with a hole where we are suppose to fit it and it must ache to be a bystander watching that part of your life without being able to fully participate in it and being told its for your well being. As if there isn’t enough grief already.
Here is what Match and I know: Life holds both hardship and joy. We carry both and we give our children both. Each of those things are gifts that teach humans about who they will be in life and what they want to be about. H deserves to learn how to carry them from all her parents. She deserves to see the many ways to be in the world. She deserves to learn how to handle the hard part of life.
But these words, “H can’t handle it,” are like swallowing rocks of untruth. They mean her mother does not want or see that H can handle it because she was made for it. She does not believe we have things to give H that matter or are important. We are not half of H, nor pieces of her wonder, but instead we are a weight tied to H limiting her vision for H’s life. We are pieces that are able to be disregarded because even though H can’t be whole without us, we don’t fit in the mold that H’s mother has made.
She was made to share life with all of us and there is enough to go around. Yet, there will be no real peace until there is also faith that we are freely, truly given permission to parent, to share, and to support H in all the spaces. Until we find true half measures for both parents’ concerns, instead of just hers, there will be no peace for us. Until we are honestly, in the core, believed to be a vital part of H’s life in all the ways, H is split. Right now H can only grow in one place, with one set of priorities, with one set of beliefs, with one set of relationships, with one way to problem solve, with one half of her life supporting her, with one half of her life accessible— but she is made of both. Both homes should be considered safe places for her.
Until then, we can only do what we can do in a small pockets of time we have. We mind our side of the parallel line of her life because that’s all the space we have. There are no actions and choices and behaviors that have us as regular, consistent co-parents. Until we’re considered part of her life’s greater plan as essential to H being whole– we can’t do anything else. Until that shows in how words and actions align there is no peace.
Yet, every once in a while, we hope. We’re ready for better. We have funny thoughts like, “What if, instead of, “H can’t handle it,” it was:
“I think she’ll really like spending all that time with you all. That will give her a chance to hopefully have some real conversations and build important relationships. I am worried that she’ll have a hard time coming back home here after the time she spent there and I find that really hard on my home. Do you think we can work out ways support her to make it easier on H? Or help me because I struggle with this piece of sharing her? I don’t know how to just watch it and I never seem to be able to fix it.”
Or, “I see why you chose the time you did. I think it might be hard on H not talking to her friends or seeing the new dog we got. Not huge reasons to avoid her spending time there, but could we revisit our choices about her cell phone? I’m worried about communicating with her if she’s there that long. Or her not being able to maintain her friendships simply because she’s at he rother home. Could we talk about how we can keep her connected to her whole life in both homes? Could we talk about how we can parent her when she has a hard time adjusting between our homes? Maybe we can lay out our two views and concerns we have. Then, after hearing each other, we can come up with a compromise.”
Or, “Hey. I wasn’t ready for you to have her that long this summer and away from routine here. I get that this is your year to pick vacation time and I like that you want to have H for quality time. I am worried about how the time you chose will impact H. Do you think we could come up with ways to make me feel better about how H transitions so it’s easier on her?”
I guess at the end of the day, its this: What is there was enough H for all of us? What if we trusted this was the plan? What if we accepted that boredom and stress and conflict are things she should practice and we are also where she’s suppose to do that. What if H got to be whole because she could be home at both places. What if there was room for us to to cause joy and pain and be in the world our way too even if its conflicting– because then H could find her middle ground being from families which is who she is meant to be. What if H had all the pieces to build her life?
I don’t know if we’ll ever get there. I don’t know if we’ll ever have peace. But I know H was made for her life. Everything that is happening is because she’s trying to find her way with the tools she was blessed with and everything is happening because no one is making room for both sets of pieces that make her a whole human. We don’t see the pain that is happening recently at Mom’s right now, but its been there before. The universe is putting it there again and again for a reason. I hope and hope H will learn how to navigate it. How she’ll be brave enough to talk and share and advocate for her actual life. I hope she see’s the world is big enough for everyone and not a pie that only feeds so many of us.
The world is big and wide and magical. We just have to listen a little harder to what it is trying to tell us. There’s enough room.
Love, Mom 