Independence Day

It started a few weeks ago and it isn’t consistent every day. She started to walk into her before school care room without even trying to give me a hug. She wanted to learn to wash laundry, she wanted to learn to wash dishes. Last week she even asked if she could comb her hair on her own for the first time.

We constantly have this conversation about she isn’t ever going to have kids, she doesn’t ever want to get married, she doesn’t ever want to leave home. But that divide is already in progress. I told her, you don’t have to do any of that right night but if you decide at some point that you want those things, I will be ok with it.

This lead to a conversation about what happens to her if anything happens to me. In typical Xyla style, it soon turned to what will happen to me if she dies first. So just to throw it out there for her peace of mind, who wants custody of me? (Just kidding. Mostly.)

It is hard for me to describe to her that I am trying to help her develop skills to manage life at the same time, I can’t imagine life without her in it. It’s that joy and sadness thing that so many empty nesters tell you about. You work hard to make sure they are self-sufficient but then they don’t need you anymore. Can’t have it both ways I guess.

There is no real moral here. I just kind of wanted to document the moment I knew she was starting to grow more independent.

Burning One Down

My daughter had just fallen asleep. A difficult task considering the sweltering Oklahoma heat in July. She was sweating heavily because my central air had finally given out. A situation I was dreading but couldn’t do anything about. I kept checking her temperature obsessively just to make sure she was ok. My checking likely contributed to her fitful slumber. Her temp was climbing ever so slowly. I don’t know when it got to my action point because it is really hazy. I took my floor fan out on the porch and plugged it into the socket outside thinking somehow I would find cool air.

I went back inside the house and picked up my baby. I stood on the porch swaying back and forth with the oscillation as if that was going to help. The fan was only pushing warm air across the porch. It was over 90 degrees in the middle of the night.

I kept going over my life and thinking about the things I should have done differently that could have prevented this moment of desperation. I realized trying to change that show was fruitless so I started to pray. I prayed for comfort and control over my daughter’s rising temps. I kept trying to get her to drink more water whenever she would wake up but even that was warm.

Then when I was done praying I decided everything had to change.

Ev-ry-thing!

Last night I was going through some papers I have been dragging around with me for several years. My family knows the ones. The ones I was obsessed with ordering and reordering and scanning and reading and researching and . . . and . . . and . . .

I have been through some things that might make a good novel someday. Though you’ll likely not believe much of it. I was getting rid of most of the instructions and regulations and intentionally vague directives. The rest I am having a hard time letting go of. The rest represent four of the hardest years of my life. It is literally my baggage. Well, my box-age.

It is a printer paper box full of every shred of whatever I thought even remotely relevant to my fight. It isn’t light. It has been pushed around my living room so I can vacuum so many times I can't count. I have stubbed my toe on it. It couldn’t live in my closet because that was also full of things I didn’t have time to go through and get rid of. So my box-age sat in my living room for everyone to see. Anyone who knew what it was tried to ignore it.

I had people actively asking me to give up but what was in that box was a matter of life. I was as desperate to change every shred of paper in that box as I was determined to cause my life to change that night on the porch. It has a tendency to consume. We have all met those people consumed by some cause they can’t let go of. We have seen people destroyed by the thing they are dragging behind.

Early this year the rock wall gave away. When it did a flood of changes came with it. It was so shocking the way everyone expected that since I had prevailed I would instantly give up my box. I can’t for a variety of reasons.

First, it has been with me for so long. There is a certain amount of comfort in the things you have control over in your life. Reorganizing, sorting, adding to and taking away from that box was the only thing I could control when it seemed everything else was in a vortex.

Second, the water has rushed by and largely soaked into the ground but some part of me can’t believe it is all over. I guess I am holding onto the box just in case I need it to preserve my life again. Like there is still a deluge that lurks behind the wall I have come through. Usually described as paranoia.

It was so hard for so long, it is difficult to think it was over so quickly and I came out alive on the other side. The other side likes to move on like nothing ever happened, like I was never drowning. In a way this box is the only way I know I wasn’t crazy, I really endured that. If I get rid of the box all memory of what I went through only exists in my heart.

I have other baggage as well. Anxiety from relationships, a certain amount of traumatic stress that resurfaces because of my career. Someone I met this year who I look to very much helped me to see that I can let some of it, possibly all of it, go. A month or so ago I looked at one of those bags and thought, “hmmm. This isn’t useful and it is hurting me to keep ahold of it. Let me set it down.”

I set it down and walked away. Every now and then, I start to feel the anxiety but I remind myself that I set that bag down and I need to leave it where it is. It is a work in progress. Eventually, I want to let the others go as well. I want the work to start in a tangible way with my box-age. Truth is, even if I keep the box, I am the only one who will know and I don’t really want to rehash it all again. I can’t move forward in a positive way if I feel the pain every time I look at it. And no one can console me over it. So I need to destroy it so it can be distanced from my memory as well.

I want to burn it page by page in a fire and watch it rise up and disappear.

Things have to change.

Things have to change.

Coloring is Everything

I read an article recently about adult coloring books. Not what some might think. Landscapes and more grown up types of pictures for adults to color. For balance the article included the criticisms of people who believe that adults who color are showing a refusal to grow up or immaturity somehow. So I had to think about it.

Parents with children usually end up coloring with their kids in a Strawberry Shortcake book. Some of the coloring books have words and stories. We give children coloring books to teach them a variety of things. It is a good measure for their dexterity, motor control, training them to conform to social norms, and color schemes. The one that stands out the most is the motor control.

I don't remember the journey to learning to color. I don't even remember not knowing how to color. I have watched my daughter as she is growing and learning to color. I saw how frustrated she was by not being able to stay in the lines. I saw the crayons go from formless color blobs to starting to conform to the cute little kittens and puppies with bow ties on the page.

I think the phenomenon of adult coloring is about control. Think about corporate people who are told everything about how they will accomplish their day. You will not use the bathroom without letting someone know where you are going. You will finish this project before lunch. Today's world is so automated, very few people have the luxury of choice or control over their day.


So why is it so "immature" to choose a past time that allows you to not only make every choice. You pick the book, the medium you color with, each color. You want an watermelon to be blue - then by all things holy, color the watermelon blue. Want your rain boot to have contours, then use the combination of colors that rounds it out. Make your own shadow. Complete the scene with other drawings of your own.

Our imaginations used to be limited to "the right color, now stay inside the line." We learned the rules, now lets break them. Here's another thing. We get involved in big projects, projects that fail, projects that stall, projects that never seem to end. When you need a quick win, with coloring, you can have one. The picture is finished when you say it is.

I think managers should purchase coloring books, crayons and colored pencils and place them in a common location where their employees can color. Think about how innovative your employees will be if you allow them to tap into their creative side and think about the possibilities. Think what you'll learn about their personalities.