The Trouble with Change

I lived in the same apartment until I left for college. I went to the same school from first grade through twelfth grade. I am not an expert in change.

However, in the past three years we have lived in three different cities: Boston, New York and now Salt Lake City. Esme, my oldest daughter, has made all of those moves with us, including the move to Boston from San Francisco when she was two years old. She is an expert in change.

Except when she's not. Esme's been having a rough time recently. She loves being close to her grandparents, aunts and uncles. She loves her new school. But she misses her old friends. She misses my walking her to her classroom, like I did at her old school. And of course, she misses walking. Anywhere. We are living out of boxes and her dad has mostly been gone. It's a lot to take, even for a seasoned mover such as herself.

I have not, recently, been very good about mitigating the stress she is feeling. I lose my perspective: when she's yelling around the house, stomping angrily and declaring that no one loves her, I see her whole life flash before my eyes. And I panic. In that moment, I see her anger stretching out over eons of time, putting her in therapy so she can come to terms with parents who dragged her around the country. I descend with her into frenzied instability. It's not pretty.

This morning, I made the mistake of refilling Esme's cereal bowl by putting the Cherrios in the milk, instead of on the side of the bowl on the place mat, where she wanted them. In the aftermath, my only goal was to get the other two children out of the house alive. We ducked the books hurled across the living room, withstood the stomping around the house and the chanting of "Nobody loves me! Everyone's so mean to me!" For some reason, I was able to stay detached this morning, playing defense to make sure no one got hurt rather than offensively trying to stop the passionate display.

She was still carrying on as we walked outside to our carport. I hustled the girls along, laden with a baby and a schoolbag and trying to reach my keys to unlock the car. "Stay close, ladies. Remember there are cars coming along here." The beauty of a suburban apartment complex is that at 7:30 in the morning, people are hanging out on their balconies. "Nobody loves me!" Esme yelled, although she didn't realize she had an audience.

"Nobody loves you?" boomed a voice from an upstairs balcony. A heavyset man looked down from his smoke on the second floor. "It sure looks like your mom loves you!"

I looked up, smiled and made a gesture of throwing up my hands as best I could while holding a baby. I knew at that moment that we'll get through this, Esme and I. When we're shut up in our apartment, tired from a day at school or out of sorts from all the new people and places, it seems like every little thing is the end of the world. But ask anyone on the street (or on a balcony) and they'll say we're doing just fine: my love for my girls is obvious, even if I'm just walking them to the car. I've just got to trust that love to see us through till we've absorbed all the change.

Comments

[Michelle]

Good for that guy.