Rough Patches and Lessons

This week, my family hit a rough patch, not unlike the kind of rough patch that every family hits now and then.  Tempers were short, harsh words were said, or shouted, and I would venture to say that not one of us felt good about it.  There was so much tension in the house that Lucy, my dog, refused to get out of the car to come in the house the morning after when we got back from the park, after she had spent an anxious previous night pacing and panting.

I have spent the last couple of days trying to find the hidden positives in the situation. Believe me, it was not easy, but since good and bad, positive and negative, exist in every situation, I knew that “there must be a pony in there somewhere.” And this morning I think that I have finally found it. 

Families are fluid. In every family, children are growing older, either from child to tween or teen, to young adult; parents are also growing older, from inexperienced parent, feeling their way, to the more experienced  empty-nester, to the more senior parent of the boomerang generation. In every role, we all have to try it out, give it a test run, and hopefully, conquer the ups and downs of the unknown road ahead. And in these endeavors, we also have to live in close quarters, tolerate where the others are on their journeys, and try to get along while attending to our work, our fun, our friends, and the necessities of everyday life.

I have come to realize that what makes the rough patches tolerable is that there is an underlying level of love and caring for each other that we mostly want to maintain. If we were to walk away after a rough patch, we would be left with no history, no lasting friendships and no experience of how to reconcile, how to forgive, and how ask for forgiveness. We would not know that we can be angry and still love the person we are angry at, we can feel terrible about what was said, and still come back together, hopefully smarter and more careful of someone else’s feelings. 

So the lessons I found this week are as follows:

·   A cooling off period is really valuable

·   When you are too angry to talk, putting your anger on paper is good  

·   Not sending the letter is even better

·   Letting a few days pass, and then writing another letter that lays out what you are feeling and why, is good

·   Not sending that letter is even better

·   Understanding that life is not smooth, that we all react to many things that might have nothing to do with the argument at hand is a very valuable thing

·   Writing another letter that offers to meet, discuss, help is good

·   Sending that letter is even better

·   Learning to forgive is excellent

·   Learning to say “I’m sorry” is even better