Sometimes, you don’t even know what you need. You just know that you need something. Today, was one of those days. I was processing something hard and had cried off and on much of the day.
When my son got home from school I had to share some hard news with him also, which turned into more tears and more pain. I talk very openly with my children and try to share with them and help them process but this wasn’t something that I could share completely and openly with them. This was something that wasn’t fully transparent because it was a topic that was highly sensitive and I knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself, which added to the confusion. “Why can’t you just tell me” he asked. “I know that you are only telling me a small part of the story” he stated. In addition to the fact that he didn’t like what was happening, he didn’t understand why I wasn’t being open with him because we have an open communication policy in our house in all directions. I sat with him until his emotions calmed and he was able to start engaging in something other than processing his emotions.
The chime of my phone went off letting me know that I text had come in. I was in the middle of getting snacks for the boys after school so I didn’t pick up my phone, I left it face down on the counter. I handed the plate of fruit and the bowl of crackers to my son and then went to find my phone. I swiped right and opened the screen. I clicked on the text and immediately felt my energy shift. Tears rolled down my cheeks in a different way, in a healing way this time. The message was thoughtful and gentle and the core of what she was saying was “I see you and you matter”
Her text mirrored back at me the details of who I was and who I wasn’t, that someone else told me I was, and then closed with saying that both me and my son mattered. If her text had crossed my path earlier in the day, it wouldn’t have landed in the same place because I wasn’t done processing how I felt, I wouldn’t have had the chance to challenge my own thoughts and have landed solidly where I needed to land. Her text was a mirror for where I had landed just hours before and it came to reinforce that where I landed was valid.
Sometimes, you don’t know what you need until you receive it.
