healthy stepmother

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Photographs

The wallet photo. The mantel portrait. Senior pictures on the picture rail. Snapshots under fridge magnets, all in a jumble. Digital frame, ever framing.

Years pass, decades pass. Piles of photographs. My life. My parents’ life. My siblings, their life. My stepchildren, life. Great grandmother, ancestral life. There, all there, in the photographs.

Back when my husband’s children where younger, we took the boat, three kids, and one small dog to Yale Lake in Southwestern Washington. The kids, despite being good swimmers, wore life jackets. The dog, never in the water as far as we knew, wore one too. After the initial thrill of tubing, my husband cut the engine and we floated while we traded places on the tube.

Into the quiet moment, the boys called for the dog. 

Without hesitating, the dog leaped. Almost immediately, she popped up in the cold water with what could only be described as a surprised expression. She paddled ferociously toward the boys with all the power her small feet could muster. The eldest, lounging in the boat waiting her turn to ski was also a certified life guard. She threw off her towel and jumped in after the dog, just in case.

In moments, the dog reached the boys and they pulled her up on the tube before any of us had time to worry.

Lucy, the wonder dog.

All that, captured in photographs. All that, now digitized. A moment of unity. Five humans pulling for the same thing: one little dog getting to a safe place.

You never know how much you’ll want an image, sometimes only years later.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Place
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Place

When I think of place, I can’t help but think of the song, Home on the Range.

Home, home on the range,
Where the deer and the antelope play.
Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word,
And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Isn’t that what we’re all looking for? Home. A place. A nest. A bed.

We’e especially hoping for the part about no discouraging word. 

When we move in with our beloved and his children we bring our things, we put clean sheets on the bed, we try to settle into the obvious space.

Less obvious is the settling we must do inside that place in the heart, the heart inside our chest, not the heart inside the beloved’s chest. The heart that houses the deepest place of our belonging. Before we will fit in any other place, we must have belonging inside the self.

In the beginning, an invitation is extended, to enter into the home of the beloved. Consider that invitation and whether space was made for you, separate from whether you feel you have a place. Was there space vacated to make room for you?

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Lucy has a place and she knows how to settle within it. 

Then, the invitation is accepted. Consider the acceptance. Did you fully accept the invitation or secretly leave strings attached like a lifeline back to some other time, just in case this one doesn’t work out. When you’ve severed old lifelines, only then will the settling and adjusting to your new circumstances have begun.

Finding place is easy. Settling into place and heart can take years.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Peace
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . on Peace

Where is the peace? Show me the peace.

I’m looking, always looking for peace. Finding ways to make things easier, better, smoother, less complicated, more obvious. All for peace.

Full of that desire and motivation, I took my husband’s hand and entered into my stepfamily.

Squish.

The sound of peace under the boot heels of the past, the familiar past up against the cold and unknown future.

img_5902One day, I came face-to-face with an image of peace. As if I was expecting some grandmother rocking by the fire and telling stories while she handed out cookies. I can count the people I know who live that way, on less than one hand. 

These days, I can show you bits and pieces of peace.

I’m building a new image of peace as I go.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . Reflects on Anniversaries
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Reflects on Anniversaries

Happy Anniversary! My friend exclaimed as she got in her car to leave our lunch date. My husband and I had celebrated our tenth anniversary as a remarried couple over the weekend and my friend has been a staunch supporter of ours.

Happy Anniversary! The card arrived from my in-laws and my husband’s sister. They have been strong supporters of our marriage, opening the family circle to make space from the very first time they met me.

Friends and extended family, the ones intimate enough to know us, all congratulated us on our milestone, a decade. A decade is nothing in the life of my women’s circle. I’m the only one who’s been divorced and remarried. The rest of them have been married nearly forty years and counting.

When I say a decade is like thirty years in a remarriage, some of you know what I mean. You know there has been a lot of water under the bridge. You know the adjustments and integrations taking place. You know.

Ironically, our celebration is the anniversary of the death of the marriage my husband was in before me.

“For the child, the parents are always together.” Suzi Tucker, Constellations Facilitator, said these words as we worked through one woman’s story.

img_1243“Amen.” I said it to myself as I stood in the place of one of the woman’s children. I know this to be true from my own experience as a child and from my experience married to a man with children.

In the early years of my remarriage, it was difficult to respect a child’s perspective while so many emotions churned and the past loomed larger than the future. These days, now ten years into the married part, it feels less foreign.

“For the child, the parents are always together.” It makes more sense now that there have been more memories laid down that support a sense of community. The funny thing is, you can’t create those memories or supports immediately. It really does take time, years in fact. Seven to twelve years according to the experts.

And, that’s what settles my heart. No one is expected to get it right the first try. No one is to know what a child needs until that person knows and understands the child in a deeper way than one or two years brings. And no child is expected to know how to handle a new person in his or her life. There’s an evolution to relationships. There’s a developmental process to relationships.

For me, the evolution was in the letting go of every single expectation I had carried over the threshold with me. For me, it was in the letting myself off the hook for not being some superhero. Maybe that’s the title of a stepmother book, “No Superheroes Needed.”

Because there’s nothing to be saved.

I do mean that literally. No one needs saving. Sure, some people in the extended stepfamily might be misbehaving. Some of them might be misbehaving a lot. Still, in those chaotic and crazy moments when it seems the world has ended, you are an idea person, you are a problem-solver, and you are your spouse’s deepest support. But it isn’t yours to go wading into the fray and set the boundaries or fight the fires. You can do that together with your partner, but it isn’t yours to lead the way or make the definitions of what will be best for children that aren’t your own.

That’s the harsh part. That’s the part that makes us feel vulnerable. That’s the point where we want to stomp our foot and shake a fist to express our frustration with our disenfranchisement. It’s the part that makes us get on our high horse which isn’t the same as taking the high road.

There are no simple answers. There are no easy solutions. Some of us have husbands and partners who are not as good at solving these problems or at even acknowledging they exist. Some of us have partners who would rather bury their head in the sand and watch a child struggle than deal with an ex-spouse. And, some of us have husbands who do a great job of boundary setting and take care of the emotional work with their children and ex-partner. So many differences within families and no easy answers.

I hope you make it to the happy anniversary stage. I hope you wade and slog your way through those days that make you want to stay in bed. I hope the many edges of your self haven’t been chipped away so that you no longer recognize yourself. I hope you come out on the other side of that swamp with your heart intact and your marriage stronger.

I hope you find ways to soothe your feelings so you can take on less and less of the goings ons as a personal affront to you. This family was going to survive, or not, before you came along.

I hope you realize your priority is your relationship to that person to whom you said “I do.” 

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Gets Up Each Morning

Some days I wonder how we survive. Not to be melodramatic, but this business of getting up and getting kids off to school and greeting them when they come home and feeding them and educating them and getting them to the place of being able to go out into the world on their own in this day and age, this is emotionally challenging at best.

When this scenario plays out in a stepfamily, it’s nothing short of a miracle.

I wonder how fathers go to bed at night without an aching heart, I wonder how they hold an arm around the one who isn’t the mother of the children, seeing her pain and feeling her pain.

I can guess many a father would like to escape memories of the argument with the children’s mother. I know many a father who pushes those emotions down day after day to deal with Little League and driving lessons. I know many a father who is there, who shows up no matter what the children need.

I’ve heard from women who marry men with children with full knowledge remarriage is difficult at best. These same prepared, successful women are then knocked to their knees by the tidal wave of unbelonging. The wave is so high and so powerful, few stepmothers escape it regardless of background and family history. It’s a wonder more don’t run, it’s a wonder so many stay. Many a stepmother’s courage should be the subject of legend. 

Maybe you’re like me and you’ve spent many hours considering what it takes to be in this remarriage stewpot? You’ve wondered just what could be done to improve the situation because you intuitively know if the situation were better for fathers and stepmothers the situation would be better for the children and likely even the children’s mother. You’ve marveled at the strength of those who only have one strategy, the strategy of pushing out and pushing away.

Those stepmothers who stay in their remarriages have found a way to keep living in their skin, a way to stay rooted to their own experience and not be sucked into another person’s view of them. They have developed an ability to let things bounce off and fall away. They stay deeply connected to their resilience, that ability to not be sunk by any one event or even a whole bunch of events. They know how to stay afloat.

Ask a stepmother what she’s doing. Keeping the faith, or trying to do so. Focusing on her relationship with her partner/husband, or intending to do so. Feeling like a good person but not so much she feels like a slave, or hoping to do so. Because several things are true, she is not the mother. She is not responsible to replace the mother especially since the mother is likely alive and well. Even if she is the custodial stepmother, the marriage will be more successful if she isn’t automatically conscripted for a certain role in the child’s life. She should discuss this in-depth with her beloved and ease her way in rather than get sucked underwater. She knows that and sometimes she lets it slide when they don’t get around to the conversation. She might regret it later and even blame him for not taking the initiative.

She gets up and tries her best. Sometimes her best is too much and she can’t know that until it’s too late. Sometimes she gives and gives and leaves herself open. Sometimes she goes out on that limb and ends up falling or being pushed off.

Often she regrets giving too much.

Often she is exhausted. Often she can see her husband is exhausted.

Some days she wonders how she survives.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . Liberally Applies Time Outs, For Herself 
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Liberally Applies Time Outs, For Herself 

Recently, a friend of mine sent a text to me and another friend. Her parents were arriving for a week’s long visit and she was worried about repeating the same old habits that weren’t comfortable for her or her family. She said, any ideas you have for me to focus and keep a level head much appreciated.

Immediately, I shared with her all the secrets I’ve shared with you, my stepmother kindreds. Take time for yourself. Go to the bathroom. Often. Use the time behind that locked door to breath and settle into your body. Walk the dog. Watch a movie with the kids/parents. Participate in activities that involve parallel play, otherwise known as side by side activities. Not having to look one another in the eye is a blessing in many circumstances, no matter which relationship feels difficult.

Later, she told us the most useful suggestion was to take a time out when things were spinning into uncomfortable territory. She had. She mentioned that her mother had needed a time out, more than once. And, she reported matter-of-factly, she took the time outs for her mother.

IMG_5871-2When I heard that, I grinned. How perfect. When someone else is misbehaving in the relationship, if they won’t calm down and discuss, or change the topic, or find a way to manage and move forward, then you take yourself away, for five minutes, or fifteen minutes, or an hour. Repeat, as necessary.

So, over the next two weeks when you’re in close quarters with family and high on the expectation roller coaster, consider taking a time out. Whether it’s your own or someone else’s behavior, it is possible to interrupt the negative interaction and let it die. The kids are pouting and yelling? Take a few minutes elsewhere. The husband has a frustrating day because the kids are not connecting with him and he starts to take it out on you? Take a bit of a break and come back and interact later.

Use the time out as one of the ways to keep healthy boundaries. Keep your internal self balanced and ready to respond in the way you choose. Behave on your terms, not in reaction to someone else. No matter who it is, liberally apply time to process the situation and decide how to move forward.

Your sanity and well-being might depend on just that.

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . Writes Her Tales at the Beach

Some of you may know, I’m working on a book. Yes, a book. Not only that, it’s a book for you. For stepmothers of all stages of family integration. It’s not a how-to book, giving you the ten things you can do to make you family happy or improve your outlook or learn to tolerate the bullying. It’s a book of tales for you to find solace, validation, and inspiration.

I’ve taken the themes I see and some of the stories I’ve heard in my dozen years of navigating this business of being in the life of my man and his kids. It’s a wild ride and I don’t expect we’re done. The good news is that it gets less unnerving than in those early days.

I have more work to do on the book, it’ll be ready for a few select readers soon. Then, more revisions and then find a publisher. Hmmm, wonder who wants to publish a book of tales for stepmothers?

This weekend, I went to the beach with Jen Violi for her inaugural Story Watch retreat. It was a great chance to work on some of the revisions and problem-solve a couple of story development issues and share with other women who listened and asked questions. One woman is a stepmother, one is a stepdaughter, and the others were so supportive and respectful of my topic. I couldn’t have asked for more generous encouragement.

A Healthy Stepmother . . . Writes Her Tales at the Beach

On one of my writing breaks, I took a walk on the beach. What a beautiful day it was.

I’ll keep you posted from time to time. I mostly wanted you to know there are supportive people out there. People who aren’t stepmothers who are pulling for peace and family respect and the possibility of family health.

May you be finding moments of peace . . .

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . knows when she’s done.

Adapted from a post February 22, 2012

There comes a moment after you’ve been struggling with a person for a long time, often years, when you know you are simply done. Maybe you reach done because the internal storm can only keep it’s energy for so long. Maybe the done moment occurs because you get bored and interested in other things. Or, maybe you become done with the difficult person because you realize that you’ll never connect in the way you’d really like to connect and you’re wasting your breath.

Before we get to the point we admit to being done, we can often come close to erasing ourselves. It’s as if we get caught up in clutching and trying and we can’t let go even if we wanted. While it’s our human spirit to keep trying and keep hoping that things will be different tomorrow, tomorrow never comes and we wake up worn out and exhausted.

Let’s take my dad and I. One day, a conversation with him started the same way it often did, with the same dance . . . he made a comment in a certain tone. I shrugged my shoulders with a certain eye roll. Then, he huffed back with a snotty remark. But, that time rather than protest again or try to reason with him I simply got up from the table with my cup of tea and moved to a nearby chair in the living room. He knew he’d lost me and he said, “Since we’re done here, I might as well leave.” And he did just that. He left.

After he left, I sat and watched the rain fall onto already over-saturated earth. I was done trying to make things okay for him. Or, for me. I wasn’t done with him. I was done with trying.

I HEART Cappuccino

I HEART Cappuccino

That day with my dad opened my awareness of the alternatives to suffering silently or forging onward even after knowing I’m done. It’s not that different than Sleeping Beauty after the apple fell out of her mouth. She came to and looked around and said, “Oh no, what the heck happened.” I felt that way with my dad, as if I’d awakened after a long sleep and realized I’d been waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. And, maybe it couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t keep sitting there. So, I moved over to another chair. Then, things shifted.

[  space to breathe and contemplate  ]

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[  more space to breathe and contemplate  ]

For the record, my dad and my stepkids are important to me. I promise myself when it comes to my stepkids I’ll behave in ways that feel respectful of me and of them, in ways that add to our future and don’t trap either of us in old assumed patterns. The same with my dad. When he came to visit again, I managed to not fall back into my old patterns.

For so many years, I thought being done meant leaving and erasing someone or a relationship from my life. It’s been since becoming a stepmother, I’ve realized I could be done and stay.

There’s more to this being done business than meets the eye. Enhanced by Zemanta

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A Healthy Stepmother . . . and a Tale of a New Stepmother

The other day I was writing a little story and decided it didn’t make it to THE BOOK. So, you get to enjoy it now. The stories in the upcoming tales for stepmothers will be slightly more complex, but this one felt worthy of sharing.

You’ll Learn
by Kim Cottrell

Eliza met and married Davis, the man of her dreams. They had everything in common, except children. She had none and he had five.

Davis was open with her before they married, his kids were a handful, even more some days. Undaunted and energetic, a professional who’d met many a challenge, Eliza didn’t bat an eye. She was an excellent partner to Davis and she knew she’d be an excellent companion for his children, once they got to know her.

The kids fell in love with Eliza, just as she predicted. They each found something to liKe about her and she shrugged off Davis’ concerns.

Then, Eliza and Davis married and left on a honeymoon. When they returned, they walked in the door of a whole new world filled with angry stares, refusals to say hello, invitations turned down. Genuine snubbing indeed.

Eliza thought the kids would calm down after a bit, but it only got worse. The kids sat between her and Davis. They kept him occupied and only spoke to him. The oldest ones ignored her and the youngest ones had a tantrum.

Just when Eliza thought it couldn’t get any worse, Davis’ ex-wife decided to move and she asked if Davis would take the kids for the summer.

Davis was overjoyed. He’d get to spend a summer with all his kids. He floated through his days at the thought of spending more time with the kids.

Eliza agreed, on one condition, as if she had any bargaining power. There would be rules. Rules that would need to be followed. Hesitantly, Davis agreed. Sort of. What he really said was they’d need to take a look and see what was best. But, that’s not what Eliza thought he said.

The kids moved in, tumbling over one another with their things and sleeping here and there and shoes strewn and clothing tossed. Within twenty minutes of their arrival they had achieved takeover. Eliza pasted a grin on her face and bravely made her way until dinner.

The next morning she went to work and forgot about her stepchildren. She got wrapped up in some meetings and almost forgot the kids lived at her house, until she was on the way home. On an impulse, she stopped and picked up two large pizzas to take home.

When she walked in the door with the pizza, the five kids descended on her, grabbing pieces of pizza and eating as they stood right in front of her.

“Stop.” Eliza yelled. “Stop. It is polite to say hello. In our house we say hello.” Her face got red and the kids stared at her.

Davis walked out of the kitchen. He said, “What’s up?”

Eliza burst into tears and retreated to the bedroom. The kids shrugged and ate their pizza.

That Saturday, Eliza put her foot down. Over bacon and eggs and pancakes, she insisted they do chores and clean up the house. The kids looked at their plates and at their Dad. Davis asked her what the top priorities were. She pulled out her list.

The blank stares that met her told her the plan was unpopular, but she insisted. “We need the house tidied up. This is important.” Eliza might as well have stomped her foot. About half the chores got done and the kids had disappeared by the time Eliza checked back from cleaning the garage.

Davis had the great idea to go to the beach and the kids excitedly jumped up and down. They loved the trip to the beach. They all piled in the van and drove the two hours to the beach. When they arrived the first thing they always did was get an ice cream at the Dairy Delight on the way into town.

A Healthy Stepmother...Draws Her Chalk BoundaryAs they pulled off the highway, Eliza said, “We can’t do this, we need lunch first. This is dessert before dinner and this isn’t healthy. Let’s go have dinner and come back.”

From the back seat, the youngest meekly said, “This is what we always do, this is tradition.”

But Eliza got louder and more insistent and her face turned red again. She drown out the kids and Davis turned the car around and drove to the beach. They walked and had lunch and when it was time to go, they all piled in the car to head home.

As they passed the Dairy Delight, Eliza said, “Wait, we need ice cream.”

In unison, the kids said, “We’re full.”

Davis drove on home.

Eliza went on in this way, seeing something that needed doing, doing it. Setting boundaries. Establishing order.

The kids weren’t bad kids, they could have argued, but they just got silent. The only rebuttal they had was to not engage with her, to pretend she didn’t exist.

Eliza drew more lines. The kids withdrew further.

Davis put up his hands when Eliza told him of one more thing she wanted changed. Eliza thought her heart would break. She thought she was being helpful. She thought she was contributing. She saw a need and she had stepped into the role of taking care of it.

Alone.

No one else was playing the chore game with her.

The last day of summer vacation came and the kids went home to live with their mother.

The house was quiet. Yes, it was also strewn with wrappers, drink bottles, and dirty plates, but it all echoed for the lack of voices and activity. Eliza cleaned up the living room, then the bathroom. She tidied and vacuumed and before long there was order.

And silence.

One day, Davis took the kids to a movie. Eliza had other plans. She got home to an empty house and cried.

Davis came home and saw her swollen eyes. He hugged her and held her. She cried more.

She woke the next day knowing she’d built the box she now lived in, no contact, no family group, all orderly, all neat and tidy and quiet and empty.

It took Eliza a week to figure out she wanted something different. She got the makings for a nice dinner and sat down with Davis and made a request. “Teach me. Show me. What’s your strategy with the kids. Tell me how you do this juggling act.”

Davis looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Then he grinned. “It’s pretty simple. Everyone has a vote. I listen. I prioritize everything else over a clean house. And, gradually, we build tradition.”

“Remember the hot dogs we had for Christmas.” He grinned wider. “Even they are now tradition. And they love it so much.” He went on. “You’ll get the hang of it and you don’t have to drive all the time. You can sit in a seat on the sideline and share and go second or third or sometimes last because someone has to be last and you and I take turns going last so the kids don’t have to. We fill the water bowl and let them drink. We fill the food bowl and let them eat.”

He paused and looked at her with all the love in his heart. “And change comes after a first, second, and third pass. It can’t happen immediately.”

They ate a few bites of the tasty meal Eliza had prepared.

Then Davis put his fork down again. He cleared his throat. “The truth is you’re so efficient you can do ten times the work the kids and I do at the pace you work. So you need to stop and eat bon bons along the way and let us accomplish our share to keep up with you. That way the kids can feel good about themselves. They naturally want to help and they will. Let them volunteer or let me assign one of them. We just need a little more time to bring all that into action. We don’t see it the way you do.”

Eliza frowned. “I have no idea how to sit while others work.

Davis grinned. “You’ll learn.”

A Healthy Stepmother . . . and Love That Liberates (Maya Angelou)
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A Healthy Stepmother . . . and Love That Liberates (Maya Angelou)

I just watched a five-minute video of Maya Angelou telling three stories to illustrate that love liberates. I’m pretty sure I held my breath throughout, hanging on every word, gasping at the end yesss.

Love, as she’s describing it, liberates.

Angelou describes as a new mother at 17, deciding to move out of her mother’s house. She describes their conversation which didn’t end with her mother declaring if Angelou left she could never come back. Her mother did not draw a line with a threat or cast a net to keep her there. And, in fact, Angelou came back several times, as she describes it, “every time life slammed me down and made me call it uncle.”

She describes her mother liberating her to go out in the world and be who she was, and later, how she liberated her own mother.

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As stepmothers, we might use Angelou’s words to guide us in our interactions with our spouse, our stepchildren, even with our own children.

One of the biggest implications is the idea of letting go, doing less for our stepfamily, and not trying to be the end-all, be-all. If this sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve read those suggestions here, and here, and here.

Instead, we grit our teeth and soldier on, pulsing with anger, seething with frustration, going through the motions of things like unloading the dishwasher, lucky those dishes aren’t people or things we love. We might crush them with our intensity.

But. Love liberates. Angelou distilled it down that succinctly and I love it. Let it be a bumper sticker or a mantra. Let it be the positive affirmation. Whatever we need it to be, let it be so.

Love liberates. It doesn’t ask, will you do this my way so I feel better. Will you salve my worries or my wounds or my sense of not belonging? Will you put me into the middle of this life as if I’ve been here all along? Will you love me?

Love asks none of that.

I’m going to guess that Angelou’s mother felt good enough in her own skin, good enough to be able to stand separately from her daughter and let her leave and let her make those mistakes. Never once did she say, I told you so. She let her go. Which means she minded her own business and welcomed Angelou back when she got smacked down by life.

What if it could be that way and be okay? What if another person’s lack of doing something or lack of achievement or being taken advantage of or inability to see something that is so terribly obvious to us, what if that is NO reflection on us? If that is true, the mistakes your stepchildren make are not about you. No one did something on purpose. No one stumbled and failed because they have a stepmother.

Remember, this life your stepfamily lived was there a long time before you came along. Your job isn’t to fix it. It’s to witness it. It is to support your husband in the best way you can. It is to take care of yourself, which may include doing your personal, interior work to help yourself learn how to stand inside your own skin without needing someone else to shore and hold you up.

It doesn’t matter if the mother of the children has difficulty holding herself up. It doesn’t matter if she does terrible and egregious things. You are not in charge of her. Neither is your husband. It is not his fault she is this way. It is not the children’s fault she is this way. And, for every woman who describes the ex-wife as crazy, whew, I have to take a deep breath because it’s so seldom that is true. She does crazy things. She goes way out into the extremes of a person’s behavior. She manipulates and she acts thirteen, but she isn’t crazy. Not in the failing-an-exam way. There are other people in the world who see her functional side, who think she is a good person in the way your people see you as a good person.

No, what she’s struggling with is letting her love liberate. She may not know how to do that. She may not have been liberated by love. She may know uncloying and unclutching love or the freedom of love that unbinds.

Even though you will have numerous times in the future to clench your teeth and breathe and try to make sense of things that seem nonsensical, you only have one person to answer to, yourself. If you focus on answering to yourself, to be as careful about your motives and intentions as possible, to let your love be unclutching and nonbinding, then your relationship with your husband and your stepchildren will benefit. That is what will help you feel better. When you feel those relationships are nurtured and strong. But that doesn’t come from the superficial, being together moments. It comes from repeated interactions in which acceptance, trust, and devotion are shown in the actions it takes to navigate the moment. It will likely still be painful, on many occasions.

Angelou’s story is cleaner than ours. She was a daughter and she was talking about her mother. She wasn’t describing a stepfamily, but I think the story still applies. Angelou describes telling her mother, “you were not a good mother of small children, but you were a great mother of young adults.” How refreshing. How completely refreshing. No beating around the bush. No recriminations. Just laying it out. Simple. I liked that part a lot.

Right now, or later today, or tomorrow, when you feel your teeth clench and your shoulders tense, think: How can I let this love I feel liberate? What would that look like if I let go of the outcome?

Let’s do some experimenting. Together. You in your home, me in mine. We’ll check back in after a few weeks and see how it’s going.

Love liberates.