Absorbing the Blow

As a mom, and a daughter, and a female, all of those things put together, I’m continually struck by how much we as our gender in each role, endure. How much we balance, and juggle, and attempt to be all things to all people; especially to our own families. I’d like to say “well, that’s just how it is in my family, we ladies are very giving people,” except that I see it in all of my women friends, relatives, co-workers… I think it must be a singularly female thing, or maybe it’s maternal, since a lot of the women I can think of who are like this are moms, or maybe it comes with age. Like mold. I don’t know. Maybe boys are like this too, or would be, you know if they didn’t have penises that took over their brains and laser-focused their entire existence down to a razor-sharp pinpoint of hormonal urgency.

I have always heard it said that you should “turn the other cheek.’ Yes I know it comes from the Bible, I even Googled it so I could tell you where it was. Matthew 5:39: “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” God said it so you have to do it. But if that’s not enough, if Kenny Rogers can put it in a song then there’s probably something to it that should be heeded, much like knowing when to hold things and fold things.

But with me, and some other females I know and love, I don’t think it’s so much turning the other cheek as absorbing the blow. We aren’t solid, steadfast pillars who take adversity and unkindness and ingratitude with no discernible surface impact; it’s more like we’re air bags. We kind of catch the unkind remark, the additional burden, the carelessly-tossed backhanded compliment like a football, absorbing that impact of that blow instead of having it glance off in a funky-angled trajectory to ricochet into somebody else. And it might leave a mark.  Not to say all women are like this, or that we’re like this all the time. You do have your Jerry-Springer-tennis-players who take every insult, perceived or otherwise, and fling it back toward the sender with equal fervor and vitriol. Everybody has one of these inside them, the knee-jerk reaction of “you hurt me, I’ll hurt you,” the toddler-mentality of “if you break my toy, I’m breaking yours.” I’m talking about the kind of catch that comes with age, maybe with mommyhood, maybe just as your relationships stretch from grades to years to decades and you realize what really matters in life.

It’s a kind of grace, really. When I was a teenager in the throes of my hormonal angst and I would rail against my mother’s carefully constructed safety barriers, she would endure my blasts, buffeting them off to the side like ineffectual clouds. She’d stand there weathering the storm until I blew myself out, realized she was right to begin with, and moved on. Not saying anything about it, just gathering herself quietly, knowing there was going to be another onslaught at some point for which I would not apologize, but taking a breath after having withstood this one in preparation for the next. It’s kind of like how you envision following a toddler around when they’re learning to walk – you’re right behind them, ready to catch them if they fall, but not actually touching them. Even as they grow, not offering any advice (unless they ask) or guidance (unless they ask); your arms are out wide to keep them on the path and prevent things from ramming into them, but they’re going in their own direction and all you can do is follow and hope they remember all the good advice you gave them, back in the beginning when they actually thought you knew what the heck you were doing. Before they figured out that you’re winging it like everyone else. That’s one of the things I imagined would be hardest about being a parent, based on how I saw my own parents as I grew into adulthood. How do you walk the line between being there when they need you, but not parenting them? Catching them when they fall – letting them hit to see what it feels like but not so hard that it leave scars – after all, that's your baby - and setting them back on their feet, but not carrying them forward? It’s a narrow line, people. A line my parents somehow managed to navigate throughout my life but one which mystifies me as much now as I walk it as it did then, watching them walk it.

I wonder how we get like that. There are so many beautiful women I know that have endured such trying circumstances (read: having me for a teenager) and yet still come through it with this patient, beatific look on their face like, “Yeah, I got that one, what else you got? I can take anything you dish out, and I’ll still be standing here, and I’ll still love you afterward.” I’m not even talking the big guns -- ladies who’ve been left without moms too young and had to pick up the slack; had to deal with poverty, alcoholism, and abuse. I’m only talking about the day-to-day minutiae of LIVING. We take on school PTOs, handmade Halloween costumes, the pain-in-the-butt project at work THAT WILL NEVER END, the laundry, the ring in the toilet that. Will. Not. Come. Out, no matter what caustic military-grade solvent you put on that sucker. The dog with the bee sting who can’t breathe and has to be rushed to the vet and the little soul that needs to be soothed because the birdie fell out of its nest and “we just found it like that.” We take on the smart mouths, the eye rolls, the hair that gets dyed pink and green and then has to be fixed at the salon, the questionable fashion choices, the sarcastic comments, the judgment in that other mommy’s eyes because OUR yogurt is SMACK DAB FULL of red #5 and HERS was organically grown in a star, nay, coaxed to life fairly nestled in a fairy’s bosom. We endure the “we didn’t do it like that in my day” and the “give that kid to me for a week, I’ll straighten him out.” We deflect well-meaning comments from friends and relatives that we take wrong; surely they didn’t MEAN to make me feel like an ineffectual dunce who can’t connect two bumps on a pickle, and WHAT THE FRESH HELL IS THAT SMELL COMING FROM THE WASHER?!   I didn’t mean for something to come across that way – and holy hell they are totally letting me have it and I didn’t mean that at all but can’t they see I frickin’ LOVE THEM?

And there you have it. There are so many women that I know that love even when it isn’t deserved the tiniest bit. Who keep taking what gets dished out, absorbing blow after blow from every conceivable direction, and are still standing there ready to pick up whatever pieces fall and hand them back over whenever the circumstances dictate. They get their feelings hurt and they swear they’re not going to fall for that again; they’ll be tougher next time and they WILL NOT be there to catch the next free-fall… and still there they are. Right when you need them before you even knew it.

If you are one of those women who are patiently buffeting blows or waiting to catch the next stumble, understand how much you’re appreciated even if you never hear it. Seriously, you may never EVER hear it. Understand how WE are able to toddle off into the great unknown because we know you’re right behind us. If you’re one of the toddlers who are railing against someone who’s in your face and up in your grille and has GOT A FRICKIN’ OPINION ABOUT EVERY LIVIN’ THING YOU DO – take a minute and be grateful for their interest and concern. It is so good to be loved. To be loved and watched from afar, but also to be smothered under the 3-inch quilted cotton oxygen-sucking monstrosity that is whatever your most difficult relationship is right now. God made us to love each other but He in his infinite yet unfathomable mind-numbing wisdom didn’t make us all the same way and so we love each other differently – and that is also why there are bell-bottoms and gauchos. Because somewhere out there some idiot thought they were beautiful fashion choices to be embraced. Go embrace all the strong women in your life today and tell them you appreciate them, and thank them for loving you when you were a pain in the arse.