My friends call me Joy. You know, the lovable, perky, resolved yellow character from the movie Inside Out? Danielle even got me a doll of Joy on a trip to Disney last year, and I keep it in my home office as a reminder of who I am at my core. But lately, I have been wondering if it would actually be more helpful to let some of the other characters from the movie Sadness, Anger, or Disgust show up a little more, when that’s how I am really feeling.
When someone asks how you are doing, what do you usually say? “Fine!”, “Great!” or if you are being super fun, “Better than I deserve” or “Living the dream!” Yeah, I am guilty of all of those. I do it when I am overwhelmed, sad or angry – most of the time, it just feels easier than going into what’s really going on. I even did it when I was going through cancer treatment last year.
All throughout my treatment, I tried to stay positive, especially in front of Diana. I didn’t want her to be scared or feel like she had to take care of me. She was very sweet, but I never wanted her to think it was her job to make sure I was okay. I had the help and support of my friends, family and church, who showed up in spades.
My mom did the same thing – thinking back on her diagnosis during my senior year of high school, we kids didn’t know many of the details. I think it was her maternal instinct to shield us from the worst of it too. We teased her for the “granny caps” that she made to wear at the house when she had lost her hair and didn’t want to wear her wig at home. (She looked like Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, and it was adorable.) I knew she was quiet, but she still did all the things that she had always done for us kids like making lunches or waking us up in the morning for school.
I am embarrassed to say that it never occurred to me that I should set my own alarm or make my own lunch to make her life even a little bit easier while she was going through treatment. That is until one morning when Mom came to wake me up, and she said weakly, “It’s time to get up, Jeannine, and I need you to make your own lunch today. I don’t think I can get down the stairs.”
Even in my morning fog, I put it together that her voice sounded lower than usual. That got my attention, and I sat straight up and looked at the door. Instead, where I expected to see her, she was on the floor on her hands and knees, having crawled down the hallway from her room to mine.
I jumped out of bed and got down on the floor with her. “Mom, I am not going to school when you are too weak to even go downstairs.” She tried to debate me, but ultimately, she was too tired to put up much of a fight. I got her up and helped her back to bed. I called my dad at work and told him what was going on, and he asked that I made sure my brother and sister got to school before staying home with mom for the day. I don’t know if I even told them what was going on at the time, but thankfully, she didn’t have too many more of those days left during her chemo treatments. It was the one and only time I stayed home from school to be with her because she needed me.
So, I thought that is what a mom did – when you are going through hard things, you suck it up, put on a brave face and smile in front of your kid. Other than asking Diana to pick things up after my lumpectomy and while I was going through radiation and couldn’t lift things, I tried to be as “normal” as possible – but I might have done too good of a job making things seem like they were normal. One morning in church, when I was too weak to sing with the choir, I sat in the congregation with her by my side. When they read the Prayers of the People, she noticed my name in the prayer list, and said “Mom, why are you on the prayer list?” in her loudest whisper. My jaw dropped, and I said, “Because of the cancer?” She scoffed, and said, “Oh yeah, I forgot!” (Maybe I did too thorough of a job keeping it from her!)
So, fast forward to this past month – I went through a breakup in January, and I am really sad. The person had a lot of great qualities, but there was one big thing that got in the way of us being able to move forward the way I was hoping we would. Again, I didn’t want to burden Diana with it, so I have been talking to friends and my therapist about it and trying to put on a brave face around her, even though my heart is broken.
For Valentine’s Day, Diana and I started the day with our traditional Waffle House breakfast, and I told her over breakfast that I was really sad that day and was grateful to get to start my day with her. We had plans for her to go to a concert that night with me – it was one of my favorite artists, and although I originally bought the tickets as a date night, I really wanted to still go. I thought it would be a fun mom/daughter date, and looked forward to it all day.
I could not have been more wrong. She hated it and was not shy about telling me about it. She slumped in her seat, sent me text messages from her watch repeatedly to tell me she was bored and wanted to leave, and just generally looked miserable. I tried to ignore her, but after a while, it just wasn’t worth it since we were now both not having fun. As we walked to the car, she tried to apologize, but I told her that I couldn’t talk right that moment. (I didn’t want to say anything I would regret while I was so mad.)
As we drove home, the silence was deafening, and she finally broke it by apologizing again. How did I respond?
I burst into tears. Big ones. With an ugly cry face, too.
Her eyes went wide, and she started to apologize even more. Once I could get words out, I told her to stop apologizing and that I wasn’t mad, I was hurt and very sad, that I had been hoping for a fun night with her to distract me from being sad about the breakup and Valentine’s Day, and that it really upset me that she behaved the way she did. I think that might have been the first time I have ever admitted to her out loud that she hurt me, and we were both surprised.
I wish I could say that we woke up the next morning and everything was back to normal. Normally, I would have glossed over it and tried to make everything “fine” as quickly as possible, doing my best Joy impression. Instead, we were both quiet for most of the day. On Sunday, we started to get back on track by both being open and honest about how we were feeling and talking through it. For the rest of the week, we have been very kind to each other, and it has been really nice – and more importantly, it feels real. I didn’t have to put on a mask and pretend – honestly showing how I was feeling turned out to be a good thing in the long run for both of us. I think it's a good thing that I am starting to make room for more than Joy.
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