Two Steps Forward, A Few Steps Backwards
I don’t know why I keep repeating the same mistake with parenting.
Most parents can probably relate, but it’s almost like nature embedded a feature in our brains that makes us forget parenting experiences 2–3 weeks after they happen (which, on some levels, makes sense if you want to have multiple kids: easier to do it when you forget what it feels like to be sleep deprived).
In my case, the mistake I keep repeating is assuming that developmental stages happen all at once, almost like flipping a light switch: either your child sleeps or doesn’t, walks or doesn’t, speaks or doesn’t; or, in my case, uses the potty or doesn’t.
The reality is much more gradual, such that Chelsea and I would often debate things like E’s first word, or her first step. It wasn’t obvious whether that ‘step’ was really a step or a controlled fall towards the ground; it wasn’t clear whether that sound E made that sort of sounded like ‘papa’ was actually ‘papa’. You get the point: these things are often gradual, and there is no parenting green light that goes off, indicating that you’ve hit that step.
So, in my most recent bout with parenting, I forgot this lesson and assumed that E would be able to get out of diapers one day, and that would be it. I’ll spare the details (in case she ever reads this when she gets older) but, suffice to say, reality was much more complicated and involved a repeating pattern of progress/regress, progress/regress. Thankfully, the trend was always in the right direction, but I got somewhat discouraged in the midst of the regression periods, forgetting that most of E’s development periods involved this same pattern. And, of course, a few days later she would move back to progression and I’d feel fine, but those moments of regression loomed large.
This is supposed to be a writing space about grief, so I bring this idea up because there is an obvious parallel between these developmental stages and my process moving forward: I go through stages of progress, then backslide a bit, then go return to a state of progress. So much of my grief is this ‘two steps forward, one step backwards’ type of process (although sometimes, it’s two steps forwards, three steps backwards).
The last entry sort of got into this a bit with a discussion of those backward steps, as I’ve felt like I’m in a rut as of late. As with parenting, working through grief is an energy-intensive process, requiring you to maintain focus on the here and the now, as thinking too far into the future is overwhelming. The problem, of course, is that focusing exclusively on the here and now gives you a myopic view that blocks out things like weekly trends, causing you to over-inflate the importance of what’s happening on a particular day and assume that’s how things are.
This sort of myopic focus is also difficult for me personally, in that my default state is to think big picture, long term, strategic. I’m not great at focusing on the details of the small, the here and now; so grief is forcing me to work against that default state in a way that is quite challenging. Long term, I know this will be good for me, but it’s f&*$ing hard to do day in and day out. Yet another layer of stress and challenge to an already layered experience…
I suppose the trick is to lean into experience a bit and have, dare I use the word, faith that I’ll eventually get through the regression and move towards a state of progress. There have certainly been enough examples in the last few years from parenting that things tend to work out, even if there are setbacks, so I just have to have that same sort of confidence in the grieving process.
And, thankfully, I do seem to be trending in the right direction.
