Sep 10

Sep 10 Fill your pitcher

“Well clearly he hates me.”

I rolled my eyes at Miguel’s ridiculous claim about our son. Miguel loves to teach and coach, unfortunately, Jackson is just not exactly receptive to Coach Dad. They may look a lot alike but their emotional needs could not be more different. Miguel is going to be Miguel, he wants to have fun and he’ll try just about anything once. Jackson, on the other hand, requires significant encouragement, he is tentative and sensitive… unless he’s playing video games and then he can trash talk with the best of them.

Jackson could be in a great mood and then the moment Miguel asks him to come outside and work on running the bases, or hitting the baseball, or practicing his lay-up, Jackson deflates a little. It breaks my heart for both of them, but they’ve fallen into a pattern now where Jackson knows Miguel will get upset with him for not trying hard enough - so he walks into the situation already upset, barely tries, and they both come storming back inside frustrated and upset. Every. Time.

Please note this is not a critique on Miguel’s parenting - he is an amazing father and Jackson is an awesome kid - but they are in a rut and, oh boy, can I relate.

So, I did a little experiment this week: I took Jackson outside to work on his running technique, which, by the way, I know nothing about. I pumped him up by telling him how great he was and how fast he was and then slipped in the little lessons I had overheard Miguel trying to get through to him. And you know what? It worked. Jackson listened and there was minimal pouting.

When I was growing up my mom used to make iced tea in a big plastic pitcher with a spigot. It had little yellow and blue flowers around the bottom and a blue lid on top. She would fill it up and set it out on the back deck to brew in the sun and, in the heat of the summer, it would be empty by dinner the following evening. What I realized during my little experiment is that Jackson (all of us?) is just like that iced tea dispenser - and it is really freaking hot outside.

My son needs his pitcher filled regularly and often because once it starts getting low, suggestions for improvement sound like draining criticisms. Even though the intent is to help and comes from a place of love and a desire to spend time with him, it is his perception that determines whether the words and actions are filling or draining. I can see this because, shocker, I am the exact same way. Except that it’s not just criticisms that drain me, its other people’s anxious energies, it’s the news, it’s every negative (or perceived negative) interaction. Unfortunately, I no longer live with my mother who was a professional pitcher filler (literally and figuratively), so I’ve had to learn how to do this myself.

We all have our own pitcher, the differences are what drains it and how we refill it. Because I’ve been in therapy since I was eight years old, I have all sorts of lists of activities that bring me joy. Naps, cuddling with Jackson and dark chocolate are all things that help me fill my pitcher, but these last few weeks I’ve felt like my spigot is straight up broken and there isn’t enough dark chocolate in the world that will fill my pitcher as fast as it’s being drained. Between the floods, fires, hurricanes, wars, oppressive laws, epic pandemic - on top of the stressors in my immediate life - it is too much. But I don’t see an end in sight so I’ve got to figure out how to close the tap and keep going.

The first thing I’ve had to do is learn how to fix my spigot. I am an anxious energy sponge, soaking up and taking on all the nervous or frantic energy around me. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember and so I just figured it was a part of me. Then, a couple weeks ago, I got upset with Miguel as he was (again) frantically preparing to leave the house and I, as I am apt to do, soaked up all his anxious energy. Of course as soon as Miguel leaves the house or gets where he’s going he lets go of his anxiety and moves on with his life. I, on the other hand, hold on to that anxious energy for the rest of the day. Now, in my mind, Miguel knew how his energy affected me so why couldn’t he use his time more wisely so that it wasn’t always a mad dash to go somewhere? From his point of view, he couldn’t understand why how he left the house had anything to do with me.

Now, while I still think Miguel could be better at time management, I begrudgingly admitted he had a point. I could try and work on being a little less porous. So, this week, when Miguel was talking to me about a frustrating social interaction he had, I listened, told him I was sorry that happened and that it sucked and actively resisted the urge to match his energy. This was a Miguel problem, not a Kelly problem and I could still empathize without letting it affect me negatively. It took serious and conscious effort, but I was able to leave Miguel’s energy where it belonged - with him. Now, I need to figure out if this same tactic works on climate change, pandemics and the state of our democracy. Otherwise, I may need to look into becoming a chocolatier.