You’ve been there. You’re forced to go to a bridal or baby shower long after the stage where they seem fun and exciting (even romantic. I’m gagging. But yes, I thought that, at least about the bridal showers). You play games. You talk about your own wedding. You compare birth stories. You win in the ‘guess-the-celebrity-baby-name’ game. You hate it. Every minute of it. And suddenly, as you find yourself gorging on crunchy sandwiches simply to make the cheery voices GO AWAY, you wonder why you hate this so much.
Wasn’t it just a little while ago, when you yourself were ‘wedding and babyshowering’? Didn’t you make a mean chicken salad sandwich with fresh grapes stuffed into croissants from Sam’s Club and talk about the details of your wedding as if the whole world were interested?
You did. It makes you sick to think about it. You DID THAT. You SAID THAT. You feel embarrassed and grateful that those who know you and love you ‘put up’ with that kind of behavior for as long as they did. I think of my poor mother, watching me go through these horrible and more importantly, ANNOYING stages of life with little less complaint than an occasional eye roll. She’s a saint. I’m going to send her to cjane to gain her wings. She deserves them.
I wonder why I can’t STAND to be around newlyweds anymore. Why when mothers start to compare their 9 month-olds, I bolt, swiftly, deftly, not gracefully, but still. Why playing PTA mom makes me physically ill.
It’s because I’ve done it, said it, acted in a way ‘appropriate’ (if naively at times, stupidly at others, selfishly at the worst) to my stage. And yet, I can’t cut others any slack once I’ve passed that particular stage. And I realized, my annoyance isn’t about them. As with so many things, my annoyance is about ME. It’s the manifestation of my self-hatred, the ‘id’ that won’t give myself a break, that can’t forgive myself, that perpetuates my mistakes by not being able to move past hating myself for them.
I’m surprised anyone older than me can stand to be around me, knowing that most of what I’m saying is a direct reflection of my ’stage,’ and that I will eventually grow out of that opinion or fear or compulsion. My poor MIL, putting up with newlyweds and new parents over and over again as each of her children have matured. Hearing the same complaints, the same untested idealism, the same over-cocked ideas about parenting. The same, the same, the same. But she’s kind. She listens, even when she knows what they’re going to say. She defends them if necessary. I don’t know if I can do it.
But isn’t that why we’re here? To realize when someone is being stupid and to love them anyway (even if they’re AS stupid as yourself at that age)? To allow them to judge you, your parenting, your choices, and to know that they will understand you better one day when they’ve realized life doesn’t always fit one standard ideal? To be patient while they weather their challenges, while their idealism is worn smooth? To learn from their hope and their faith? To get over ourselves in order to be teachable, even by those who we think are stupid. Isn’t that what life is about?
And I guess that’s what God is doing too. Listening, comforting, guiding, loving, even though he knows better. Even though he realizes that we won’t always think this way. Even when we insist on being perpetually stupid. I think he allows himself an eyeroll now and then. But not more. He doesn’t close himself off to us when we’re annoying or self-centered or even hateful.
And I think of how much patience God has; I can’t even imagine. If I’m ever going to catch up, I’ve got to change my attitude instead of playing peanut gallery at every bridal shower. Laugh instead of running away. Listen instead of preach. Love instead of judge. Love myself enough to realize that I’m learning and growing and so is everyone else. But patience isn’t my specialty and for now the realization that I need to do these things is all that I’m succeeding at. Something tells me I’ll be waiting for my wings for a while. At least I’ll be in good company.
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