Green Sleeves...
Vintage emerald green shantung silk coat dress
Ok, I must admit, I am hopped up on the holidays, and I can't seem to shake this desire to post these kind of fancy clothes that would work for any seasonal party, and wax on about how delightful the season is, but, as I was in the middle of writing this, I lost my brain. This meltdown was not directly inspired by some memory of holidays past, or some tender moment with my mom. I was pushed to the edge of my sanity after two hours of math homework with my youngest daughter, whilst I was preparing dinner, after a day going through my year end business paperwork. Now who wants to party?! The simplest reasoning for this trigger after some door slamming, high pitched screaming, and tearful apologies, is that I am not sure I have fully figured out how to process that when I was my kids age, no one helped me with my homework, and certainly not while they were making dinner. The dinners came later, bountifully, and with so much love you could truly taste it. But that help with the academics, never. Ever. I am the sister of one of the most respected sub-atomic particle physicists in world. His name is Jordan Nash, (if you want to google him go for it, but I'll list his larger credits here: discovering the 'Z' particle while in grad school at Stanford, project manager at CERN, head of the High Energy Physics Dept.at the Imperial College in London...) This was obviously, a child that needed no help whatsoever with his studies. In fact he dusted us all in the cranial dept. So I think when I came along, there was no model. I was, as all my juvenile reports cards state (I found them all after my father died) "a delightful, affable young girl who has so much potential, if only she could focus herself." Yep, that was pretty spot on. I was the embodiment of Ferdinand the bull, standing in left field content to just sit and smell the flowers. I was a dreamer. Truth be told, I wished for a fantasy life, I would construct elaborate stories for why my mom missed a school play ("she was out horseback riding") or invent maladies for myself to garner attention. I could not wait to disappear into the chronicles of Narnia, or any other fantasy world a book could take me. Despite all odds, I went on to hight school, college, graduate school, and to ultimately run a business that I am very proud of.
Cut to tonight, two HOURS into homework with my little one, who is clearly the 'Ferdinand' in our family. And I lost it. Lost it as she flopped around in her chair, and guessed at answers, like throwing darts at a board. I snapped, and shrieked, and generally acted like a crazy woman. I went upstairs to my room, locked the door, and sat on my bed. What was I really mad at? And then it hit me, I was mad that I was there, and that wasn't enough. There was this angry little girl in me that was yelling "you don't know how good you've got it! No one helped me with my homework!!" But as soon as I realized that, it hit me, that is not their fault. Sure, I can get frustrated about 2 hours of lackluster academics, but I need to check the fever pitch that it triggered.
I have a perfect quote framed in my house. It simply states: "Lets make better mistakes tomorrow" Here, here. Let's try that shall we? I will try not to ask my children to be the proverbial 'bellmen' for my emotional baggage. This may take some time, but tomorrow is another day.