Last night three of us were playing a game together, a new game that I had picked up right before we were quarantined. It's a fairly simple card game but as we were playing I made a move that I believed to be legit, my son called me on it and I defended my position. He explained his and back and forth we went, each of us digging deeper into our own interpretation of the rules.
In my defense, this was the end of a long day. We are all at home all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. ALL. OF. US. HOME. ALWAYS. Earlier in the day our daughter had played her own game of hide and seek. My husband and I had spent almost 15 minutes searching inside and outside trying to find her. Calling her name, looking in all the usual and unusual places, moving from anger to fear and back again. We were out in the front yard discussing the possibilities: do we start searching the neighborhood? call 911? Finally my husband spotted her. Our climbing climber was on the roof of our neighbor's shed, just on the other side of our fence. She had climbed herself up and gotten stuck and was too afraid to call out. My husband got the ladder and helped her down. OH. MY. GOODNESS. I was flooded was anger and relief. We fed her and put her to bed. I escaped to our bedroom to cry and scream into my pillow. About 30 minutes later my son knocked on the door asking if I might play the card game. I said, "Not right now." Another 20 minutes later my husband knocks and asks if I want to play. I agree.
So there we were entrenched in our own interpretations; neither one of us can let it go. Both of us stubborn and clinging to what we KNOW is right. I see the worst parts of myself in him and will him into not being so stubborn. I say some judgmental stuff to my son and my husband asks if maybe we might want to play another time. I agree and return to my tears in the bedroom, clinging to my righteous indignation.
A little while later, I text my son asking if he might have some time to chat. He comes to talk and I apologize. "Sorry I wasn't a good sport", I say. Then I tell him how much I love him and we talk about our day. We talk about school and how we might make our time at home less terrible. I give him a hug and tell him again how much I love him.
