As a counselor it’s often my job to see behind what’s happening on the surface, and to listen beyond what’s being said. But as a mom, I don’t usually have the luxury of much time. So I plow ahead, and generally end up reacting to what’s right in front of me, on the surface, rather than identifying what’s really going on.
Geoff had built loft beds for our sons Ben, who was 16, and Mo, who was 13. We re-did their whole room, to better reflect the young men who lived there. We moved out the old bunks which were more for little kids. And moved in the new loft beds which the boys had sanded and helped build. In the process, we moved some dressers around.
Martha, who was 14, had a tall and narrow dresser which now fit better at the foot of Ben’s bed. Mo liked a dresser we had stored in the family room. So Martha ended up with Mo’s old dresser, which happened to match the dresser Emma, also 14, was using.
It was a busy evening setting up the new loft beds and then moving dressers around between the different bedrooms upstairs. By the end of the evening we were tired and irritable.
We had just given orders to the boys to put their sheets and bedding on their new beds. And we told Martha to get her clothes put away into the new dresser she was going to use. On our way downstairs, we noted that she was sitting on the floor of her room not doing anything and, as bedtime was approaching, we wanted everything finished for the night. I ordered her to hurry up and get her clothes done.
I vaguely saw that she looked upset. But I was tired and needed to get things wrapped up so that we could all get to bed.
A few minutes later, we could hear Martha and Emma arguing upstairs. We gave them a minute, hoping things would resolve. They didn’t. We called up the stairs to Martha to come down and visit with us in the living room.
Our oldest daughter, Kathryn, had just left for her senior year of college. And our second oldest, Anna, had left two weeks earlier to begin her first year of college. We were all adjusting to having them both gone. We’d moved the two little kids into Kathryn and Anna’s old room, rather than leave their room untouched and keep everyone else crowded into other rooms. But even that felt strange, changing things in what had been Kathryn and Anna’s room.
As we were adjusting to their absences, Martha and Emma both started high school. Having been homeschooled since first grade suddenly being gone all day to the public high school down the street was strange. For them, and for me.
Seemed like every time we turned around something more was changing at our house.
Martha came storming down the stairs. Mad at something that had happened upstairs. And mad at us for calling her out of the mix.
She threw herself down onto the couch, arms folded over her chest, scowling at us. We watched her for a second and then asked what was going on.
She spouted any number of things that were bothering her. Ending with, “And I don’t want another dresser! I don’t know why I couldn’t just keep the same old dresser I had.”
We explained, again, that it fit better at the foot of Ben’s bed than his other one had. And that the new one she was getting was nicer, and it matched Emma’s dresser which was already in their room.
She knew all this. After a second or two, she continued.
“I’m just tired of having to change everything. I don’t see why we had to change the dressers. I know what you said. I just don’t want anything more to change!”
Right then at that very moment I managed to step out of my mom-role for just a minute. I acknowledged what she was saying. I validated that there had been a lot of change in our home the last few weeks. I identified some of those changes: Kathryn going back to college, Anna leaving for college for the first time, their old bedroom now being John and Kristall’s room so it looked different in there now, the boys’ new beds, moving the dressers, Martha and Emma starting high school and going back to public school after seven years of being homeschooled. Holy cow, I said, she had had a lot of change.
She started to cry. The tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. And by then I was crying, too. Because for all those changes that Martha was dealing with, I was dealing with all of them, too.
After a moment’s pause, I said, “It’s not really about the dressers, is it?”
“No,” she admitted tiredly. “It’s about everything else.”
I nodded.
A few minutes later I’d given her a hug, and she was heading back up the stairs to finish putting her clothes away in her new dresser. I sat back down in my chair and gave myself a moment to breathe, marveling at how quickly everything resolved once I looked at it from a counseling perspective instead of always reacting out of my very practical mom-role. And I wished that I would start making that shift more often.
It wasn’t about the dressers tonight. It was about something much bigger. It was about change. And growing up. And letting people move on, even when we’re not ready for them to go. It was about uncertainty. And the desperate desire to keep things the same. Even when we can’t.
It wasn’t about the dressers. It almost never is.
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