Last week while my youngest and his best friend were playing video games, they hatched a plan to have a sleepover that night. Unfortunately, this plan managed to include everything but asking permission from either set of parents.
The sleepover didn’t happen, but kid 3 already had it in his head that is was going to. Which meant, in his mind, that instead of refusing to give him something, we were taking something away.
Tragedy. Disappointment. Tears.
This sort of loss is huge to little boys. The heartache and heartbreak are the biggest things in their worlds, last about a day, and life is back to normal. Learning to deal with disappointments is simply a part of growing up, but doing so teaches lessons to last a lifetime.
I’ve been trying to apply this lesson the last few days, as I struggle through the grey mist.
It’s been a long, difficult, trying week. A week that I suspect is harder in totality, yet smaller in perspective, than kid 3’s sleepover disappointment.
I’ve kept the biblical remonstration that “This, too, shall pass” in mind all week as I struggled.
I know that in time the depression recedes. The grey mist lifts and I can go back to what counts as “normal” for me. The result of keeping this perspective is that during those times I can keep perspective, the slippage is less.
Last time the grey mist closed in on me, all I could maintain was my daily exercise habit. This past week I’ve kept up with
- family
- work
- writing
- videos
- and, yes, exercise.
When the mist has lifted completely, I’ll be at a better restarting point.
It all comes from maintaining perspective.
