During our recent pre-move purge, there were times that I experienced near euphoria when I unloaded a certain piece of furniture that had become somewhat of an albatross around the neck type situation – it was heavy and no charity wanted to take it away. The elation I experienced when someone desired it for their use and was even willing to come and move it out of my house was at times over the top. At times, I was so wrapped up in my own perspective that I was blindsided by the perspective of another.
One of our girls is emotionally astute and quite adept at both naming and expressing a full range of feelings. She recently stopped me dead in my purge euphoria tracks. There was this couch in our playroom. It is a decent couch, but it had weathered years of kid and dog activity. There were a few holes in it, poky wires sticking through the piping, and it was no longer a pleasant place for me to hang out. When the couch rescuers were coming to pick it up, our sweet daughter became very agitated. Once I clued in enough to realize that my good riddance couch feeling wasn’t shared, I slowed down to try and empathize with her position.
“That is the couch where daddy and I used to play “get you” when I was little”. “Sissy and I did lots of tricks on that couch”. Ohhhh I thought, and then said. We have a different point of view.
The couch still went out the door that day, and I was still happy about that. But I needed to let another in my family express their very different feelings about this event. Just giving her perspective voice and honor, along with allowing her to help load it into the truck of the very real people who were excited to take it home, helped us both through this situation.
Our family needs this often sentimental and emotionally attuned member. On several occasions, she has coached me in expressing emotions in healthy ways; grieving and shedding tears over changes ahead and then figuring out healthy ways for us to transition to a new place. We recently agreed together, after a crying session, to take pictures of each other in front of our home to take with us as we journey to our next. And our new favorite song that we sometimes sing or recite after giving voice to our sadness is *”Home is wherever I’m with you”.
*Thank you Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for this song and to my nephew Joe and his beautiful wife Katie who introduced me to this song as she walked down the aisle a few years ago. Have a listen.
