Today is Tuesday. On Tuesdays, my first grader (Charlie) has basketball practice. Well, starting today. Because it’s a new season and today was the first practice. In order for us to commit to this season of basketball and confirm the logistics of getting our kid to practice, many (many) conversations were had and elements were considered.
I asked my mom to pick up our preschooler (Oli) from school and confirmed she could take him to his weekly band class. I enrolled him in said band class. I gave her notes on how to successfully separate with him at said band class. I had to coordinate with my husband to pick him up from my parents’ house after the class, to spare my mom another trip to the west side.
I negotiated a sanity-saving carpool that gives me 45-65 minutes of life back into my day with the one first grader in our zip code. Normally, carpool would do pick up on Tuesdays, but on this particular Tuesday afternoon, I was scheduled to volunteer in his school library, so it made sense for me to pick him up myself.
While checking books out for Char and his classmates, I tried doing the math on how many hours a week/month/year I spend on scheduling. By my rough estimation, it’s 183 hours a year. 183 hours!!
At some point during the day, my husband (Raymond) realized he took his “fun car” to work and didn’t have a safe way to transport the little one back home, so I had to call my mom and ask her to bring him home.
On our drive home, my mind pulled up a visual of the afternoon calendar. I have five google calendars I use regularly and view simultaneously.
light blue > work
meetings, presentations and time blocked for strategy, writing and deliverables
purple > personal
workouts, appointments, lunch dates, self-care, school commitments
green > joint calendar with my husband
includes our individual and family commitments on evenings + weekends
red > kid 1
school drop offs/pickups, enrichment, sports practice, playdates
grey > kid 2
school drop offs/pickups, sports and music classes, playdates
As I navigated afternoon traffic in Culver City, my mind’s eye saw “basketball practice” clearly in red, from 5 to 6PM.
“Char, we’ve got a break before basketball practice. Do you want to spend some time together?
“Can we play Monopoly?”
I said yes, even though I hate Monopoly and that game never freakin ends, but I thought how often do a we get a quiet house to ourselves with no little brother to mess with this guy’s real estate game?
When we got home, we set up the board and he schooled me as we played, with me occasionally responding to messages, but never once looking at my calendar. I had an alarm set for 4:40PM, so we’d be on time to practice.
At 4:35PM, my husband called.
“What happened?! What’s wrong?! Why aren’t you at practice?!”
“It starts at 5PM.”
“No, it doesn’t! It starts at 4PM.”
“Shit.”
Then he said something like “that sucks” and I said something not so nice about making me feel shitty and I hung up - feeling shitty.
I felt shittier when Charlie’s face fell when I told him we missed practice.
A few minutes later, my husband was in the house and gave me that look he gives when I’ve had an unsavory reaction and he’s waiting for me to realize that I can do better.
And my mind skipped between a bunch of disjointed, but connected, thoughts at once. Mistakes. Being right. Being good. Rupture and repair. Repair. Repair. Repair.
A couple moments later, Oli got home and set up Chutes and Ladders next to where Charlie and I had been playing Monopoly. I was playing both games, side-by-side, simultaneously. Spin the wheel, count the spaces, move the piece. Throw the dice, move the piece, buy the property, pay the money. Back to spinning the wheel.
I called to Raymond, who was in the kitchen. He walked in and chuckled at the sight of me playing the two board games.
“This, THIS, is a metaphor for my life,” I said, as I waved my arm over the table.
“This is what it looks like, when you have too many tabs open. This is why we missed basketball today. THIS.” I was still waving, for dramatic effect.
Raymond was still smiling, knowing that this metaphor was only the beginning of what I had to say.
I grew up witnessing conflict, but very seldom witnessing repair.
Over dinner, I repaired and then some. So that I could communicate the clarity I had gotten. So that my children could witness me with my emotion, my process and my repair.
I told them I spend a shitload (“a lot”) of time (183 hours!) coordinating and delegating and calendaring and registering and rescheduling, in order to make life happen for our family. I spent a lot of effort getting the Tuesday schedule settled, all to miss the Tuesday practice and I was fucking pissed (“really disappointed and frustrated”) that I messed it up.
I looked at Char and said “I don’t really like to make mistakes. But making this mistake meant I got to play an hour of Monopoly with you and that was really special.”
He smiled.
Then I looked back at Raymond and said, “I’m sorry I snapped at you. You didn’t say anything wrong, but I guess what I really wanted to hear is:
Wow Jess, it is really shocking that you do not show up at the wrong place, at the wrong time, on the wrong day more often, considering all that you have going on in your brain, and the fact that you are responsible for not only managing your work calendar, your personal calendar and our joint social calendar, but also all of the appointments, classes, playdates, school activities and other shit for our children. It’s actually MIND BLOWING that this is one of two times I can remember you missing something. Give yourself a break, Jess. Enjoy finishing Monopoly. Get yourself a snack. You’re awesome.
You know?”
“Yeah, I know. I love you. And you are awesome.”
There is a distinct feeling, kind of an aha moment mixed with reverse déja vu (if that makes any sense at all), when you realize you’ve broken a cycle. When you realize your children are experiencing something vastly different than what was modeled in your childhood.
I grew up learning that making a mistake was an indication of a character flaw, and that being right was synonymous with being good. So I haven’t wanted to be a person who makes mistakes. A person who gets it wrong. A bad person.
I got the message wrong. It is not making mistakes that is the issue. It is the lack of communication, acknowledgment, insight and most importantly, repair, that creates breakdown in a relationship. That creates dysfunction in a family. That repeats the cycle.
Tuesday was actually a really good day.
This Week’s Haiku
My brain can’t handle All the tabs, open at once It’s okay, honey
Until next time, keep repairing.
Love,
Jess