Open this valve to release pressure.
I needed a lot of synonyms for "complain"
The thing about kids having some independence is that they come back and tell you all the worst parts first. All the complaining comes out, all the minor affronts, the major snubs, the stubbed toes and petty gripes. Pent up stories that need to get unloaded, and parents are there to catch it. And then you get the outrageous stories that they have been waiting to tell you. The ones that make you glad you weren’t there to watch, but happy they have had the experience (and survived it unscathed).
But the great stories of fun and adventure and success, those you might get mentioned off hand, in a random conversation, 6 months later.
Why is that? I have no real answer except that the things that we assimilate, the things that are good and merge with our sense of self, those are just part of us. We don’t need to process them in order to understand them. Are these the simple carbs of human experience? Or the proteins that become part of our muscle? Ugh, now that I have compared it the human digestion, I really wish I hadn’t.
It’s all the stuff that can’t be absorbed or assimilated into our selves that wants to get rehashed (and if we don’t, I think it often finds ways to be rehashed without ever being processed).
This explains why my journal is a mess of complaining, gripping and dissecting. The good stuff doesn’t even get mentioned all the time - sometimes I make myself write a sentence or two to mark an excellent occasion, before I go on to write three pages about the one thing that really pissed me off.
Somedays, it’s hard to convince myself that it’s a productive use of my time. But I see how much my son relaxes and moves on after venting out the tough moments. He is ready for the next activity, or the next challenge. And I know that once I have worked something out, once I have a name for the problem, 75% of the strain dissipates. The problem may still be there, but the urgency and frustration bleeds out and I am left with some ease and some trust that I can figure out what to do next.
I also have some special people who will listen to the most petty complaining and still love me, and I am grateful that they will let me vent and unload all the stories, so I can leave most of the weight behind and move forward.
And moving forward is my goal right now. I am preparing a new class - an asynchronous class on mind mapping. Students will get a series of videos, short essays and prompts to practice mind mapping as a form of journaling, brainstorming, or unpacking of the overwhelmed brain. I am learning some new technology (see my new reels!) as well as trying to work while both kids are home… and, well, there has been a lot of journaling, if you know what I mean.
I am making a list - what words should I mind map next?