Just help them get started

“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.” – Eric Hoffer

There is a moment in every mother’s life that is a source of deep, dark dread. A moment so terrible to consider that we dare not contemplate its possibility, a moment dreaded far in the depths of our souls, those deep dark places rich like rotting compost heaps–a single awful moment around which our lives revolve, a moment of profound, lasting, intense fear.

The moment I am talking about, of course, is that sad and simple instant when our small children announce that they no longer need an afternoon nap.

My time has arrived. On Monday, Tess refused the respite that has eased her entry into afternoon (and mine) for the past two-and-a-half years. I responded predictably by demonstrating the first stage of change (DENIAL), refusing to believe that the Day Had Come. In defiance of her announcement, I marched her up to her room against her will, determined that I would get my time, my moment of silence, my brief dive into thought for the day.

Kicking and screaming, Tess bellowed at me from her little bed, her mouth square with anger, large tears spurting from her eyes, her tiny hands frantically pulling at my clothes. She screamed and screamed; I thought she was being mean—scratching at me in anger, it seemed, trying to hurt me. We struggled. This 5’8” person against that 38” tall person. She was clearly winning.

But finally as I turned to go, resolute and ready to POP with frustration and with my need for some quiet time and with anger that she was denying me that serenity and on the verge of my own screaming tantrum fit—thinking through my “to do” list and realizing that I needed for her to nap if I was to get any of it done—as I turned to go and leave her to her fit, I heard what was really in her voice, what she was screaming at me.

It wasn’t anger, but fear I heard. And as I stood at the doorway, my back turned to her, I could finally make out what she was screaming, over and over and over again. I could finally understand the words she was saying: "Just help me get started" she screamed in that sobbing, catching toddler way, "JUST HELP ME GET STARTED!" she pleaded with me, her clawing at me the gestures of a drowning person, trying to get hold of something that would save her, desperate to have me help her.

“Just help me get started.”

Tess just needed help getting started on that wave to sleep, a story, a song, a restful word, perhaps. She just needed help getting started. It wasn’t anger, but fear; it wasn’t selfish, but scared; it wasn’t mean to me, but needing to be connected to me—she just needed help getting started.

And so she slept, and me with her. We both helped each other get started.

I wondered afterward how often anger is really fear.

Perhaps that explains the two-page ad in our local paper two weeks ago denouncing homosexuality, paid for by a coalition of Christian churches and local businesses—their anger fueled by fear and driven by ignorance. What are they afraid of?

How often do we demonstrate anger—those screams, that clawing at others, those accusations and venom and vitriol and passive aggressiveness—when what we really feel inside is “please don’t leave me here to reckon with the reality of my own life, to ponder the future alone in this dark room of my life with the shades drawn against the sun, to be still and understand and know what my life has held up to this point and what the rest of it might look like, to know who I am in relation to who you are, to try to sooth myself—it’s too still, too quiet, this bed is too small, the room is too dark, it’s too scary for me to do this all on my own.”

~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~

Just help them get started, those people around you who are hurtful to you or angry with you. They’re just fearful and need help getting started, settling down, embracing the darkness, being in that quiet space with just themselves when the shades are drawn.

And own your own anger—as Marie Curie has said, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” Where you are angry, there is fear. What is it? Is it fear of something that others will do to you, or is it fear of what you will do to yourself?