I know I’m late to the party when I tell you that I just finished watching the movie, “Inside Out”. As a psychologist and a life coach, I absolutely loved the movie; it’s message, and the lessons it gently laid out. However, as a mom it made me slightly miserable. The movie, for those of you who haven’t seen it, shows the internal workings of a young girl’s mind as she navigates childhood and the emotions that come with it. As the young girl heads into adolescence, she begins to shed some of her childhood imaginary friends and behaviors. That is where this mom had a little trouble.
I’ve felt both desperate misery and unadulterated joy.
Motherhood has been the most challenging and also the most wondrous adventure of my life. How is it possible that events that so emotionally drain me also fill me with more joy than I thought possible? For me, the movie triggered these contradictory feelings that somehow coincide with each other, which of course is the greater theme of the movie. There have been so many times that I’ve watched my children move from one phase of life to the next and I’ve felt both desperate misery and unadulterated joy.
When my oldest son kissed his father and me goodbye on a gorgeous fall day in a midwestern college town, I wept for hours at how miserable I was sure to be without him. Yet periodically, I would laugh with joy at the adventure he was about to undertake and at how proud of him I truly was. This year, when my daughter called to tell me that she’d gotten into the college of her choice, I wept. Little did she know that they were tears of profound happiness and equally profound sadness.
Being a parent is not for the faint of heart!
Mostly what this inside out world of motherhood has taught me is that being a parent is not for the faint of heart! Parents who’ve gone before me, I bow to you. I bow to your strength to both accept and let go. I bow to your ability to be sad without burdening your children with that sadness. You are warriors! I’m amazed that each of you hasn’t found a way to keep your youngest child home and by your side until the end of time. (A thought that has crossed my mind numerous times when thinking of my third child.) How is it that you don’t throw yourself on the ground at college campuses across the country when you say good-bye to your babies?
While watching the movie with my family, I became immediately weepy and cried steadily throughout. I looked at my growing children all cuddled in the family room with my husband and I am grateful for these moments. If motherhood has taught me nothing else, it has certainly taught me to hold many emotions at one time and to learn to be okay with all of them. When my daughter leaves for college in the fall, this movie will be banned from my home. Similarly, when my oldest left for college, I refused to watch Toy Story 3 with it’s miserable “boy leaves his toys behind” theme!
Letting go is so hard, yet what choice do we have?
Letting go is so hard, yet what choice do we have? Ultimately, it’s not about us as parents, but about them as budding adults. I’m in for the ride. I’ve taken a front seat on the roller coaster and I’ve thrown my arms up in a false bravado of pride. Don’t look too closely or you will see the bunched up tissues pressed into my raised fists.
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC