Hard Truths & Soft Landings

HARD TRUTHS

• We cannot control other people and the choices they make, though we can be a good influence via the way we live.
• We cannot buy a gold foil box of fancy butter cookies on a whim at ShopRite and expect to stop at the serving size [two cookies].
• We cannot set and enforce boundaries within a family if we can't sit comfortably with the itchy/guilty/doubtful/second-guess feelings those boundaries inevitably bring on for one or both parties.
• Therapists do not know everything, though many of them know a lot.
• Teenagers are a rare and complicated breed of bird. They are elusive, alternately showy and stealthy, hard to capture, look substantial but are fragile and featherlight--and sing a birdsong all their own as they fly from tree to tree or brood in the branches. They speak their own language, keep their own hours and are not always very practical, what with following a flock and/or building a home from someone else's discarded yarn or twine. Yet somehow by the grace of God and good fortune, they make it work. Some of them stay up all night and then rise early in the morning. Some have a lot of growing up to do until they can safely leave the nest.
• No one is perfect. We are all works in progress.

SOFT LANDINGS

• We can be there for our children even when they are difficult. Our love can be warm even when our boundaries may seem cold.
• Children need and like simple things, like good food in the fridge, clean dishes and towels, toothpaste, fresh fruit. It's easy enough to supply those things as long as you have the money and time.
• Naps are a beautiful gift from God.
• Taking care of your teeth makes you feel better.
• Curling up with a good book is one of life's greatest pleasures.

Good night.

TCOY

1. Private Benjamin.
2. Made homemade tomato sauce from NY Times Magazine, using two large cans of whole imported organic tomatoes from Italy. And sauteed baby spinach with Punch.