I’m gonna go with another 30 minute set today. I’ve not got much new anyhow. How about a re-frame session?

Yesterday I had a great conversation with my friend, T, and one of the new thoughts that came out of it was the approach of taking a negative thought and reframing it into a positive. I mentioned to her that I often feel bad about not getting enough done or guilty for not spending more time with my kids. She told me about “reframing.”

Instead, think about the fact that I’ve got an 18 year old that’s successfully enrolled at a 4 year university, has goals and aspirations, and is very responsible. Think about the fact that I did that. I made that human and helped her grow and succeed.

When she said that I was like “wow.” She’s right. And when you spin it like that it, it softens the harshness of the constant angst I feel about not being able to spend more time or any residual guilt about getting a divorce.

I still remember an incident with my daughter freshman year, her first school dance and something I did which upset her to tears. She’s a shorty and when we went shopping for her dress and shoes, I bought her flats.

The day of the dance I drove her to the point she was meeting the group of friends she would be going with. They all gathered in a line for pictures and every single other girl was wearing heels. She was mortified! You can’t see it in the pictures, but she was seriously working hard to hold back her tears.

In the pictures she was at least a head shorter than any other girl. I mean, how was I to know? She was already overly sensitive about being so small and looking extremely young next to her peers. I should have known. But she was still so beautiful and that’s all a mom sees you know. I tried to minimize it, but that only made it worse.

T said Z would not even remember that. I disagreed. She said, put a note on your calendar 4 years from now to ask Z what she remembers about high school dances. That will be the test. I’m totally going to do that!

Anyhow, I need to try and reframe my current worry about unsent graduation announcements or the lack of planning around a party. The graduation never happened. I mean she’s done and she graduated, there was a virtual graduation ceremony which I sat and watched on Facebook that really only included her picture on the screen for about point five seconds. In-person graduation is set for August 2 but that is still kind of iffy at best.

We are planning a somewhat impromptu gathering of a few family members and friends this weekend. Very small, all outside, and late enough on Sunday we won’t have to do much in the way of providing food. She’ll have a few friends over and I’ll have my mom and sister. Some of Jim’s family was invited, but not sure who will show.

I know in years to come I will think about the fact that it wasn’t enough. Especially given that she had a lot of the senior experience swiped by the pandemic. But that’s no excuse really for not having done more, or at the very least sent out announcements. Yeah, I can see how I should probably try to start reframing that now, before it eats at me too much. We’ll see if I can find a way to do that.

On that note my 30 is up. Time to get to work.

Cheers to Thursday,
~Miss SugarCookie