It’s a Mess

Throughout my life, I have strived to do things well. I enjoy pushing myself to improve and get better at things, and I enjoy seeing a final result that represents that hard work. But, in parenting, I’ve met my match. Pouring into my sons often meets with more behavior; more comfort leads to testing limits more; and a sense of safety leads to seeking undesired independence. And I can read all the things that tell me being a kids’ safe space can often lead to these challenges, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier.

In the past, the things I’ve attempted to accomplish have often been within my control. There have been inanimate aspects that have yielded to my influence with ease. Whereas my sons are very much their own beings, with their own personalities, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. But, it doesn’t necessarily make the hard days much easier, even when holding this value.

And as I sit with things in the past, I also recognize that I had an external evaluator providing me with feedback. Grade cards, work evaluations, or a culminating performance. A known, tangible moment where I was able to put all my work out there and receive some evaluatory feedback.

But I don’t get that with parenting. And in many things in adulthood, we don’t get that focused moment of feedback.

Which, at times, has been rather tricky. But I look at what I am trying to use as my evaluation. And, for me, that is God. Which, in my highest hopes, is an authentic relationship I can hold. And when it comes to relationships, even at their best, they can be messy. In fact, the more intimate they are, the messier they get.

And when I hold that fact, that in my highest hopes, the things I am holding greatest in my life are relationships, with my family, with my friends, with God, then I am much better at giving space for things to step beyond being nice, neat, and orderly. I know they aren’t linear, I know there isn’t a stagnant consistency to them. There’s a continuous movement with them; they are dynamic and messy.

But I have to step outside the comfort of the good/bad dichotomy and let the mess be okay. I want the comfort of knowing I’m doing well, but with that, I lose the vibrancy of the mess.

And so through it all, the messiness of relationships, the good chaos of holidays, the expansive horizon of a New Year, may you give space to be in the unknown of relationships. Knowing that you won’t have the comfort of inanimate evaluatory systems, but you’ll have the beauty of growing, stretching, and being with others. You’ll be living in the mess, with those around you right there, too.