Skip to main content

Growing into Slow

I am a watcher of time. Being on time means being late to me.
I like things orderly and on time. Precision makes me very, very happy.


As it turns out being the mom to kids who have special needs doesn't really work out that well with this whole little quirk of mine. 
And I get frustrated. 
Why is it so hard to move quickly? People, people, step to it. 

I am being taught some difficult lessons right now and this is one of them. 
Perhaps, just maybe, the world moves too quickly and we have bought into it.
Appointment to appointment. Checklist item to checklist item.
Where is the time to slow down and savor each small, momentary success? Do we even enjoy this race we are so determined to win? 


We live in a world where being slow is frowned upon and speeding up is a sign of your character.
Go.Go.Go.

These thoughts have been running through my head since last week. 
I had reached out to hold my daughter's hand and take her to play in the yard.
I wanted to push her on the swing and watch her smile.
The swing was my goal, and irritation quickly set in as I realized it would take a good ten minutes just to get her down the stairs of our porch. 

My dilemma was this, was the swing still the goal at the cost of teaching her how to use stairs?
I took the ten minutes to teach the stairs and then there was grass, uneven grass.
I wanted to just move, get to the swingset, but again she needed me to be slow. 
And so I held her hands and shuffled my own feet to the pace of hers, trying really hard not to drag her forcefully to that swingset. 

Eventually we made it, and she sat on the swing and let me push her. Her face was devoid of that smile I had worked so hard to see. And it hit me, that despite my ever moving slowness I had not JOINED her in those small steps. It was me trying to get her to go faster, trying to move my feet slower, but not really slowing down WITH her and feeling each step, hearing each movement of the wind. I was exclusive in the way that I handled her. 

And so, with great pains, I am learning not just to slow down, not just to take the time to do things, but rather to join with my child in her stillness. 
I am coming to understand that the slow pace has it's purpose and I am going to choose to honor the stillness in my life. 

Sometimes we have to go backward to move forward. This is just one of those times. Slow is often far better, carrying more significance and stealing from time in order to teach us important life lessons. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Loving A Child Who Cannot Speak

I have a daughter and she is nonverbal. It is one of the most difficult portions of my life. When the tears fall it becomes a guessing game. When we miss the mark of the needs the tears become screams. The frustration that mounts for everyone is intense. That screaming can last for what feels like an eternity. What ends it? Her resignation. She has no choice but to quit. Nobody is answering her need. Because we don't even know what it is. Imagine all of your needs every single day and now imagine that you can never, not even once, tell one single person what you need. What a horrifying thing. Those dreams where you are being chased and you are scared and you try to scream for help but nothing comes out of your throat? That is her world. And we, as her parents, watch on in sheer pain and frustration. Just sign it!!! Just try to say something. Anything. And she does. Every single day this brave soul yells out, makes sounds, tries. Not a single day goes by when she doesn't try...
140 comments
Read more

The Coming Trauma

I'm on the verge of traveling to adopt two little girls in, hopefully, a few weeks. The thing is, I've done this before, I've adopted before and I know what is coming. Trauma is coming, beautiful, harder than I can imagine or probably even remember trauma. I remember coming home and feeling utterly alone and wondering what on God's green earth I had done. I remember feeling horribly guilty for the thoughts going through my head and I remember hiding in my room as I slumped against the bedroom door and yanked at the hair on my scalp. Oh, but heavens, I remember. It hasn't been that long, not even two years. I swore I would never go back. I was quite certain I would never survive and if I did, well, then that must mean that my son had not survived. It was one or the other. We wouldn't both make it out of that first year. Then, I saw a mom I had met in China post a picture of her son throwing a tantrum and I thought, "Maybe I'm not alone!" I cal...
6 comments
Read more

Seeking Hope

In the last year I trained myself well to focus on the task before me and not worry about tomorrow. However, somehow in the middle of this self training, in the forcing of tunneled vision I lost sight of one of the most basic things. In my quest to make it through the day I left behind the inspiration, the sustaining of hope that breathes life into tired hearts. It hurt too much to hope. The fear of having a child die is overwhelming. And so, I was just surviving and for a time survival mode is absolutely necessary. I needed to just finish one more piece of paperwork. I needed to call one more government official and not be emotional. I needed the fortitude that survival skills bring. Once in China, faced with more trauma then I even allow myself to remember right now, I needed to survive. I needed to bathe my daughter, make rice cereal, walk to the store, avoid the human trafficking rings, block out the rude stares, wipe a runny nose. I needed to survive on little to no sleep. My he...
1 comment
Read more