I planned a special weekend with my kids while I was attending a film premiere. I booked a hotel room for the night and I had my kids join me. I thought we would spend some quality time together and have a fantastic weekend. But, there was not one thing about this weekend that went as planned.
The hotel was a dive and incredibly sketchy. The weather was bad and even if we had wanted to swim, the pool was disgusting. I would say the weekend was an epic failure. I was so upset. In my head I created a perfect picture of how we would hang out in the hotel, sit in the Jacuzzi, get along and create some memories together. I have been missing having time together with my kids who are growing at lightning speed. Since my oldest left at the beginning of this year, I feel that time is running out on me. When you experience epic failures, all your other failures, sadness, and any hard feelings you might have seem to come to the surface. If you’re lonely, you feel even lonelier. If you’re missing someone, you miss them more. And if you are needing something, when you experience an epic failure, the need becomes absolutely urgent.
As the weekend progressed, everything that was sitting heavily on my heart started surfacing to the top. When we got into the car to go home, I started crying. My kids were a little shocked. “Are you crying?” my youngest asked, surprised. As the tears rolled down my face I said, “Yes, totally crying.” Although my two kids felt bad, they also found this incredibly funny. “I am disappointed,” I said, not really sharing the mountain of things that were surfacing to my emotions. Epic failures are epic, because they pull all of your emotion into the failure and epically make you feel like a larger than life loser.
“It was bad,” she said. “It was hard, Ms., just too fucking hard!” she added. My students don’t usually use words like failure and success. It’s more like it worked or it didn’t work. They also don’t talk about their feelings the way I do. Yet they constantly ask me if I feel them. “Do you feel me, Ms.?”
“Oh, I feel you.” I say. “I understand.”
This particular student was allowed visitation for the first time after a long time with her kids, but it was a disaster. She had been incarcerated. The facility she was in was very far, so they couldn’t visit. Her cousin had custody of the kids who were little and they didn’t remember her. She was so excited that she ran to them, but they ran to the cousin. She got mad. The kids cried.
“It will get better, Girl,” another student told her.
“When the shit is bad, the good news is it can always get better. You’re their mama. It will get better. Your kids just need time.”
Another student said, “Ha-ha! We need time after we do time.” And then my beloved student who sat in jail for 41 years (yes, read that again-- forty-one years!) said, “Don’t be afraid to take the time you need for the time.”
No words of failure, only hope for better.
No use of the word “epic.” Just the use of the words “time, patience, and feelings.”
Those are the words they use. Today. Next time. One day at a time.
“Ms., it was a big deal to me.” she said.
“I know,” I say. “It must have been disappointing.”
“I got very angry,” she added, “so I yelled at my cousin, and then she got pissed at me.” I shared with her that I got very disappointed over the weekend I had and that I sat in the car and cried in front of my kids.
“What did they do?” she asked me.
“They laughed at me.” My class thought that was hilarious. We all laughed.
On my way home, I thought about my epic failure. I thought, maybe it wasn’t as epic as I felt. I guess it is all about perspective.
The following week, my student shared that her next visit went much better than the first one. She thanked everyone for all their advice and she said,
“The bad time makes you better for the next time.”
“Yes,” I tell her. “It kind of sucks, but it’s true.”
“What about you, Ms.? Did you rearrange your disappointment?”
Rearrange my disappointment. That is the most amazing way to look at things.
I looked at this woman, who has truly had her share of epic everything. Yet she chooses to rearrange her feelings, her disappointment, her attitude, and believe in a better tomorrow.
“Because of you, I have. Thank you,” I say.
“You’re crazy,” she says.
“You are epic,” I reply, and I teach her what epic means.
She smiles.
“Epic. That’s me.” she says.
“Epic success,” I add.
“Yup,” she smiles, and seems just a little happier, and a lot prouder.
It was an epic class.
