Learning to fly
One year ago today, I wrote a version of this letter to my oldest daughter for her to open en route from San Diego to Boston for her freshman year of college.
This is a condensed version of my “momisms” — some shared through the years and others were those things I felt if they weren’t said before she flew the nest I would have failed as a parent.
As a society, we strive for better for our kids hoping to both spare our children from pain and receive the benefit of our wisdom. Many of these landed and are ingrained in who my children are. Some I fear will still need to be learned the hard way.
I couldn’t have predicted she’d return home due to Covid and her extended summer would turn into a gap fall with a hopeful return in Spring 2021.
My middle daughter, Ali, graduates high school in January 2021 and as sad as I am for her to leave the nest, I have a whole new appreciation for the life we once lived and and am filled more with HOPE she’ll have the opportunity to this rite of passage rather than dreading the day she leaves.
On the anniversary of this article, I am sharing here for others who have children leaving the nest or remaining home but transitioning to adulthood.
1. Give a compliment sandwich. If you have criticism for someone, put it in a sandwich — say something nice. Follow it with the meat or “content” of what you really want to say and leave them with another compliment. People will remember how you made them feel.
2. People would really rather talk about themselves than hear you. If you want to win someone over, interview them. You will learn far more from listening to others than you will prattling on about yourself. (I am working on this one still.)
3. Comparison is the thief of joy. Everyone is on their own journey. You have no idea where their path will lead.
4. Wherever you go, there you are. If you can’t figure out a way to like yourself, no one else liking you is going to matter. At the end of the day, the only person who’s opinion counts is yours. Are you doing the best you can? Are your intentions good?
5. What you put out into the world is what you get back. If you want to attract love, be love. If you want to attract kindness, be kind. Expect the world to treat you the way you treat it. One day, God willing, you will have a child who goes away for school. Do you want them to call you? Then, call your mother.
6. Clean up your own mess. People will feel you don’t respect them if you leave a mess behind. The same goes for being late. When you are late, it makes others feel you don’t value their time and you come across as self absorbed.
7. Take care of your body if you want it to take care of you. This applies to drugs, food, exercise, sleep. This also applies to your clothing. If you look disheveled, it is a reflection to others of how you feel about yourself.
8. Don’t reveal too much about yourself before someone has earned the right to “know” you. Giving too much too soon will also make you seem desperate.
9. You will find what you look for. I love the exercise in Jen Sincero’s book where she asks the reader to spend one minute counting everything that is yellow. When the minute is over she asks how many things you saw that were red. It’s kind of like when you go through a break up. All you’ll see when you look around you is happy couples. You will see what you want to see.
10. If the door doesn’t open, it’s not your door. I know you aren’t going to be believe me on this one and it only took me 48 years to learn it myself but things have a way of working out the way they are supposed to. Sometimes the answer is no.
11. When people show you who they are, believe them. (Thank you Maya Angelou.)
12. Go out of your way to do something nice for someone else. It will feel far better for you than it will for them. At the same time, allow others to help you. It’s just as much a gift for them.
13. Journal!! For so many reasons. One, it’s a great space to fully and honestly express yourself and also because there is nothing quite as fun as re-discovering who you were and what you were doing at certain times in your life.
14. If you view experiences, both good and bad, as part of your lessons here at “Earth School”, it will make it far easier to face the tough times. What can the experience teach you?
15. When in doubt. Pause. Sit back, (meditate if you can) and let the answer come. Nothing needs to be forced. What you resist, persists. Accept what is.
16. Do your best to live in the present moment. Worrying only steals tomorrow of trouble. Besides, most of the things you worry about never happen. For me, having a Ground Zero helps. Think of what the worst case scenario is and how you’d survive it. Think of JK Rowling homeless and writing Harry Potter.
17. Get rid of the illusion that you can control anyone else. All you can control is you and how you react to a situation.
18. Make a list of things that bring you happiness. When you are sad, you can visit the list and practice self care.
19. Hurt people HURT people. If someone is treating you poorly, something is usually going on their own lives. Happy people do not spend their time trying to make other people feel bad.
20. Learn to listen to your gut. We can make the choice to listen to the little voice or ignore it. If you go against that voice, don’t be surprised when you aren’t happy with the consequence.
Certainly, nothing could have prepared any of us for the life we now know and what the impact will be for all of us. I sense a whole new set of “momisms” will emerge when I send my daughter Ali off to school.
Definitely a different time and place.