My daughter has a birthday coming up. As I was shopping for gifts for her, I thought about how stressful her birthday used to be for me. I wanted things to be perfect for her, but I felt like I could never get it quite right. She was always longing for something a little different, a little more special, a little more magical. Birthdays always ended in tears– first hers, then mine. I wanted to do right by her, but it just felt impossible. No matter what I did, I failed to make her 100% happy. I do not like to fail, so I found myself dreading the moment of sadness that was bound to come.
That is not how it is anymore. She has matured and is amazingly empathetic and sensitive. Her main focus isn’t always just her own happiness, but also on gratitude and relationship-strengthening interactions. Her birthday expectations are a little more realistic and I think she knows how hard I try, even though I am not especially good at birthday magic. We have come to know and accept each other better as mother and daughter. She has learned to give me grace for the ways I don’t know how to make special moments, and I have learned how to give her space to have her big feelings.
It has been revolutionary to me to realize that she does not always perceive her sadness as a problem I need to solve. In fact, I think she just about never wants me to try and solve her sadness. She is very good friends with her sadness. If you’ve seen the movie “Inside Out”, she was always a person who experienced the full range of emotions and doesn’t try to tamp down her sadness when it bubbles to the surface. That is not how I am wired, so it has been a learning process for me. I am much more like Joy– always trying to get back to that happy (or at least a neutral) feeling.
I am not comfortable with big feelings– my own, or other people’s. I have grown a lot in this area, but it is not a natural strength. My instinct is a little like a wounded animal– hide your pain so nobody perceives you as weak. I am trying to view this through a neutral lens. I don’t think it’s wrong that I don’t express, or even really feel sadness or pain the way other people do. I don’t think it’s better to be this way. It’s just the way that I am. But I have needed to learn the value in how my daughter experiences the world and I’ve needed to learn what she needs from me.
She needs comfort from me. She needs understanding. She needs empathy. She doesn’t need solutions or distractions. She often just needs a moment to herself, to fully experience her big feelings without having to deal with the big feelings they might cause in others. Sometimes she needs a sad song or a sad movie or a sad book to give her the emotional catharsis she longs for.
And it turns out that sometimes her sadness is her superpower.
She is able to hold space for the grief other people experience. She is not intimidated by situations that could potentially cause pain. She is bold in ways I haven’t been. She is comfortable being the safe person for people who are hurting. She is drawn to them and wants to hear their stories.
I know there are things we will be watchful for with her. That superpower of being comfortable with sadness also comes with challenges we are aware of and are teaching her how to anticipate and manage. But I wish I had known earlier how to embrace her soulful spirit instead of feeling personally attacked when I couldn’t be the source of eternal happiness for her.
I asked her how her day at school was recently. She said it was great, “except” and then she told me a sad story. This is a near daily occurrence. She is happy. She had a great day. But it truly is not a great day for her if there wasn’t a little moment of sadness mixed in. That sadness is a tiny treasure she holds so gently. She experiences it. She lets it go. I have learned to love her sad stories and can now experience the drama of them with her instead of trying to solve them with my adult perspective.
So as I get ready to celebrate another birthday with her, I recognize that there may likely be a moment of sadness. We probably didn’t get all the gifts she was secretly hoping for. Her cake may not turn out just right. She may struggle with big feelings around her adoption as we spend time talking about the day she entered the world– a day we did not get to spend with her. Whatever brings out the sadness, it is not a moment she’s running from. She is okay. She will be okay. She doesn’t need me to fix anything. And in those moments, she’s teaching me how embracing the sad moments makes the happy ones even happier.
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