CATERING TO VS. CARING FOR

The relationships in our lives are forever changing on us. We have the ability to make the transitions smooth or tumultuous. It is up to us how flexible we are in redefining the roles in our life as we age. Our children grow up and we have to balance not overstepping but always being there for them. Women who we had babies at the same time with and saw everyday for years are still great but the kids are grown so you don’t need the distraction of meeting at the park or calling 10 times during the course of a day. You and your husband don’t have to juggle small kids and talk about travel teams and teacher conferences so go back and reinvent what it was you liked about each other to begin with and don’t forget the amber gestures! And of course there are our parents…..

I recently had an opportunity to grow into the next phase of my role as a daughter. I had been struggling for a long time on being ‘A good daughter’ to my parents and all that it entailed. I was so used to CATERING TO everyone I forgot to CARE FOR myself and everyone around me! There is a difference. Catering to someone will exhaust you and make you resentful. Caring for someone is a loving and nurturing feeling and you will know from the way your body feels, (75 degrees and sunny), that there is a difference.

Kids grow up, people divorce or they don’t, people get sick and hopefully well again and parents, as we all do, grow older. It is an inevitable fact of life. Sometimes the hardest relationship to redefine is the one with your parents. It is difficult to see them age, they sound and look like they always do but are not quite the same. Just as a lot of times it is difficult for them to see you not as ‘the child’ yourself anymore, because of course to them you are and always will be.

We have to keep evolving and reinventing “normal”. I am sure it is not easy for parents to see their children in the role of anything else but belonging to them. Maybe they don’t realize sometimes that juggling your own life is at times, an extremely stressful and complicated thing to do. Because of course they love us more than life as we do our own children.

If you have the opportunity to sit down face to face or pick up the phone and let your parents know, (or anyone you find yourself catering to instead of caring for), We are all doing our best and if we can’t always be what everyone needs us to be 24/7 then we have to take a deep breath, forgive each other our shortcomings and move on. Enjoy the moments we have when we are all-together and allow each other to just be who we are. Let go of our roles from the past. Care for each other instead of cater to someone. Support each other and of course love each other always.