Real Simple

Okay, I admit it; I didn’t “accidentally” fall off the cliffs yesterday. I dove in with a force and a swiftness that, upon reflection, has left me reeling.

Actually, my son dove in first, and I happily (and without a second’s reflection or hesitation) assumed the diving stance taught to me when I was 7, bent my knees, raised my hands over my head, and propelled myself off the cliff after him (performing an amazing lay-out on the way down, fyi).

I had a fantasy when my son was young that I was the World’s Best Mom. I felt completely at home with the requisite accoutrements of my World’s Best Mom status: sparkly tiara, glittery sash, and Queen (Mary) Elizabeth gloves (so I could accurately perform the royal wave). For 16 ½ years, I was paraded through small towns and big cities. I happily agreed to personal appearances, autograph signings, and generally gracing my adoring subjects with my astounding presence and World’s Best Mom talents, skills, and abilities (all the while avoiding paparazzi on bad redheaded hair days). It was, I must say, quite the life.

That is until 18 months, 4 days, 12 hours, and 58 minutes ago, when behaviors my son began engaging in rattled me off my throne. It was then that my sparkly tiara slipped off my head shattering it into a hundred irrevocable pieces, my glittery sash ripped up the back (and not on the seam), and I lost track of my Queen (Mary) Elizabeth special hand waving gloves.

Next thing I knew there was an invitation to join AARP in my mailbox along with a six month subscription to the Real Simple Moms Club.

It broke my heart.

I had to admit it. I never was and am not now the World’s Best Mom…not even close.

I reluctantly filled out and returned my subscription form to the Real Simple Mom’s Club (and promptly tossed the AARP materials in the trash…as usual).

Now this stripping of my World’s Best Mom outer vestments did not come about in the wink of a majestic eye. The last 18 months, 4 days, 12 hours, and 58 minutes have been an increasingly challenging time for my son and me in navigating our relationship. However, something came to a head yesterday morning. Specifically, my son and I had “words.” We both said angry things that we had never said to each other before. I am ashamed to admit it, but I totally lost my ability to contain my upset, anger, and disappointment, and I verbally lashed out at him in a moment of reaction (hence the dive off my cliffs).

My son and I, once it was over, looked at each other…stunned. Neither of us had any idea where the upset came from nor the magnitude with which we both expressed it.

Suffice it to say that yesterday was a day my very own real simple moment was served bountifully to me with a side of confusion in, bewilderment about and inklings of other as yet unrecognized fantasies about me, my son, and our relationship.

This morning I got up and read the passage “The Immediacy of Salvation” from A”S”CIM after a day yesterday of trying to understand and make real simple sense of what the hell had happened with my son. As is usually the case after reading that book, I got a real simple glimmer of an idea.

What I learned from reading this morning was that my son and I carry a complicated mixture of positive and negative feelings about our individual selves, each other, and our current life situation. And these feelings create perceptions and beliefs that may or may not be true.

I think that is all real and simply human.

Problem is I didn’t (and still don’t) want to look at it. It is feeling very similar to the resistance I had to looking in the back of the boat several weeks ago. So I am thinking that there is some part of my great big stinkin’ black amorphous ego that survived the sun and its deadly ultraviolent rays and that’s what reared its angry tiara-less head yesterday.

And, what causes real simple human problems, I think, is doing exactly what I am doing right now…avoiding looking at what I don’t want to see.

All that being said, I still don’t wanna look at it.

But I know deep down inside that the truth of our relationship can be revealed to us by allowing a real and simple look at what is there between us…all of it.

Real simple but, for me at the moment, not real easy.