Pivoting

Back in my dancing school days, I had no issues with pivoting. Put one foot forward in a tondue, shift your weight forward onto the ball of your foot, and then spin both balls of your feet around and *voila!*, you are now facing the other direction.

Somehow, somewhere between childhood and adulthood, pivoting became taboo. Changing your mind became flaky; switching directions became an indication of failure. Forward momentum was the only way towards success. And I, like many others, became anxious about breaking my momentum or moving backwards to "go back to the drawing board" because it seemed to signal some sort of character flaw or personal shortcoming or -- worst of all -- a bad omen for all future endeavors.

If you've been reading my blog this month, you've seen my many fits and starts and restarts of a memoir piece about parenting my daughter. I took it on last-minute and have exhausted myself trying to plow through the process in a foreshortened timeline. If I just worked hard enough, spent enough butt-in-seat time, I could churn something out. Right?

This is classic Caroline: she doesn't take no for an answer. She will do the impossible; bear down and move mountains; she is unstoppable, a force to be reckoned with. I've lived my whole life harnessing my stubborn will and turning it into the brute force with which I will plow through any obstacle before me. But an entire lifetime of playing a more intimidating version of the Kool-aid Man has left me battered and bruised, physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Living life like this has taken its toll. It is not tenable and I am unlearning value judgments based on productivity and "success" and relearning the values of patience and humble acceptance.

This piece is not some assignment for a class that only the teacher will see.  This piece is extremely personal and high-stakes: I'm putting a piece of writing -- about some of the most personal aspects of my daughter's history -- out into the world and I don't want to do it half-assed. It's more important than just "get it done".

So, I have decided to pivot. My drafting of this piece (the "elfin girl child" pieces in this blog) has revealed itself as so many experiences that cannot, at this point in my journey, be turned into a narrative. I haven't even put together the past decade+ of parenting my daughter into any sort of mental narrative because it is not logical. Everything about it has been illogical, out of order, and counterintuitive. It's definitely not something I can shoehorn into a five-minute read-aloud for the Listen To Your Mother audience. I must honor this story for what it is and what it's becoming. I'm pivoting.

And I'm okay with that.