A Balancing Act

Yesterday Savana and I went on a shopping spree. It was glorious. Savana is the perfect shopping partner because she has a sense of style--far more than I do. And she was perfectly willing to make the day all about me. Ah--doesn't get better than that! And so we flitted from store to store, picking out and trying on and debating and sorting and buying and leaving and starting again.

APCS, the school Jace attends, let out at noon yesterday and so Thursday night, Jace decided he didn't want to go to school the next day. At first, I considered the possibility. It would be nice to sleep in, not rush around making breakfast and brushing teeth and combing hair and checking off one by one all of the details that are required in order to get out the door for a school morning. But then I considered the alternative: homework.

Can I just say, I hate homework? I mean, seriously. I hate it. I don't have the patience of a saint when it comes to sitting at the table and grilling Jace over math facts, or explaining for the 178th time how to do a math problem or ... well, a host of other or's...

And so, around 8:30 Thursday night, I informed Jace that he needed to go to school because he would be glad, in the end, for a totally free weekend rather than a Sunday filled with schoolwork. He begrudgingly agreed as I promised him that Roy would meet him at home and we would all go out to eat to celebrate Easter weekend at El Que Pasa.

El Que Pasa is Roy's and my favorite Mexican restaurant. We go there far more often than I'm willingly to admit publicly as we both adore Mexican food--always have. In fact, I can list our favorite Mexican restaurants that we've traversed regularly since we started dating--but I'll spare you. (You can thank me later.) But one of the really good things about El Que Pasa is that we can take a herd there to eat and leave with a reasonably cheap bill. And so, Roy and I cooked it up that, after he was done with inservice with the freshmen, and Jace was done with school, and Savana and I were done with our shopping spree, we would meet there for a celebratory lunch.

Perfection.

I called Roy on our way there and, as I was broadcast over the stereo in our car that Roy was driving, Jace piped in, "Hey Mom! I survived school!"  Laughter rang in his voice.

After lunch where we all consumed far too much but it was simply far too delicious not  to, Roy and I joined forces to run some errands while Jace went home with Savana. And then, once I got home, I decided it was time to organize my closet.

Oh my word.

Three piles: clothes to give away, clothes to throw away, clothes that aren't mine. (Somehow Savana's size small shirts got hung in my closet and have managed to go unnoticed--probably because they would barely fit over my right arm, much less my waist and so they stayed hidden between my regulars.) It took me quite a length of time to sort through and organize and move my winter to the less accessible side and my spring/summer to the more accessible side, but finally, it was all accomplished and got to the part I looked forward to all day: dumping out the bags of clothes I had purchased on my bed and going through one by one, hanging it all up and dreaming and enjoying each separate piece.

Mmmm....I love new clothes.

Admittedly, I'm not so great at putting outfits together. That is far more Savana's specialty. Sometimes I bug her to come upstairs to my closet and pick out an outfit for me as her eyes see things I would never envision. Maybe I should have her put some outfits together for me and take pictures, hang them on my closet wall--as she was explaining that designers do that for the stars.

I could handle that lifestyle. 

Later that evening, long after everything was put away neatly in my closet, Savana came bounding up the stairs. Hey! Where's the outfit I bought?

"I thought you pulled it out of the bag!" I replied, racking my memory regarding whether or not I saw it as I waded through my new clothes. Everything had been stuffed into a single bag at the store where Savana purchased her one little item: a flowy jumper that looked adorable on her and made me look like an over-stuffed blueberry (as we both tried one on). And so the search began, and finally, defeated, we came to the conclusion that somehow her outfit didn't get placed in the bag. And so, we will once again head to the mall to retrieve what is ours--explaining and, hopefully, restoring the wayward piece.

Shortly after Savana's discovery, Jace came home in tears. I will spare the details but suffice it to say, it is a story of childhood rejection and dealing with the unkind words and thoughtless acts of others.

And this one? Well, this one I won't  address. Rather, I will simply comfort Jace and encourage him to learn from such experiences, to remember how biting words feel so that he doesn't do the same to another. I will encourage him to simply learn the art of walking away rather than going head to head where words spill, bringing pain and hopelessness.

Life is a balancing act. Sometimes? Well, sometimes choices are easy: buy this, don't buy that; confront this, don't confront that. Other times, choices are not so easy as the consequences can bring disaster. Sometimes, silence is golden, even though one's child is caught in the crossfires of hard life lessons. And sometimes...

well, sometimes, that balancing act means looking for the beauty rather than the pain. Both are there: it's just a matter of what we choose to see.