I was reading a book. A really good, insightful, helpful book. I was eating it up. I couldn’t wait for the next chapter…it was something about limitations, and I thought, “Heck yes, this one’s for me! Yes, tell me how to deal with limitations.” Disappointed does not even begin to describe my feelings. The author described her limitation which was essentially that she was chatty and it got her into trouble sometimes. I couldn’t even pick the book back up I was so angry. It wasn’t until I tried to talk about it at my book club that I realized just how intense those feelings were. I sobbed. Straight sobbed. And practically yelled at my friends through hot tears. I was so angry. “That’s not a limitation! Let me tell you about limitations!”
I went on to describe the needs of two of my children, children with life long disabilities; limitations that were never ever going away. They will always function with those limitations, until their very last breath. I described the loss that inevitably stays by your side with shared custody. Limitations in when and how I spend all of my time with my children; how I parent them, how our family and marriage function as a whole. Limitations that will be our reality until we are done raising them and even into adulthood. Limitations that were never, ever going to pass. Limitations we had no control over.
My patient book club gals just listened. They let me cry. They let me be angry. They let me grieve the loss of things that would never be for me and my children. They did exactly what I needed. And then, gently, they told me that if I had just kept reading instead of throwing the book down in anger, I would have discovered that the next topic was about a child with the exact limitation as one of mine. Deep breath.
I took a few lessons away from the whole experience: