My Inner Grug

Last weekend I went with my family to see The Croods.  It was a fun, entertaining movie.  Nothing too challenging.  I was pleased because it was a movie all three of my children wanted to see.  This is no easy task, given that their ages range from 6-13.  All of them enjoyed the movie as well so that made for an easy outing.  Whew!

One thing I found myself surprised to experience, however, was my discomfort at the degree to which I found myself identifying with Nicholas Cage’s character, Grug.  Grug is the father of the cave-family.  He is afraid of anything new and different and is motivated by his fear of death. 

I was caught off-guard by my reaction because a) my mother was always afraid of my brother’s and my demise and I swore I would never be like that and b) I didn’t think I was at the stage of my life where I would resist and fear the new, improved or different. 

When I sat back and felt my stomach lurch at how much I could relate to Grug, I started taking stock.  These days I feel as though so many things are changing around me and I feel it hard to keep up.  It feels tiring even thinking about keeping up.  I miss some of the ways ‘we’ did things in days gone by.  I can’t stand listening to myself reminisce about ‘the way things used to be’ because, once again, I couldn’t stand listening to grown-ups do that when I was young and I swore to myself I wouldn’t do it when I grew up. 

Mostly I thought when I grew up that I would ‘know’ how to do things.  The world would be at my disposal and I would finally be old enough and wise enough to do something about it.  Well I’m finding out that’s not the case.  I constantly feel like I’m out of my depth and I’m constantly scrambling to learn new things. 

Honestly, I thought I’d be writing the book by now.  I really did.  I thought I’d have written a book by now. 

Instead, I have been diligently going to school, raising a family and starting a business; and when I stopped to look up I felt as though all the rules had changed.  Learning about marketing and blogging and facebooking and designing websites and online appointment schedulers and setting up paypal is daunting.  None of it is that difficult once I get my head out of the sand and start learning but the psychological barrier to start is quite imposing. 

As I stare at the wall of my psychological barrier it gets bigger and bigger.  And scarier and scarier.  And that keeps me from starting.  So I need to remind myself to start.  I don’t need to have it all figured out first.  I won’t have everything organized before I begin.  I just need to begin and I will figure the rest out.  I have found that once I start, all the new stuff is quite cool and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be.  I’m not sure if it’s all better and I do think the world is moving to quickly but it is comforting to feel like I may be in the flow instead of standing on the shore watching the world pass me by.  And I’m less grumpy – about the changes and what they mean to me and my family and my world.  So maybe I don’t ‘know’ how to do things.  But I can learn.  And that keeps me from being as afraid. 

Then the making decisions out of fear part.  I want my children to stay safe and make good decisions.  My decision-making is so influenced by everyone and everything around me that I’m sure I don’t often decide things from my heart anymore.  When I watch my children make decisions I feel liberated.  They don’t overthink everything they do (well – sometimes they do).  Often they just go with what feels good or what’s funny in the moment.  They aren’t worrying about who will see their facebook post (pros and cons here) or their instagram pictures.  They just go with their gut.  I would like to think that I taught them this because it is what I would like them to learn.  But if they watched me for five minutes they would learn that I often make decisions based on what impression I may give or what people will think about me or how I may be perceived in five years based on one comment or on my ‘chances of survival’...  Wow.  How debilitating is that way of working?  My kids are way better than I am at starting.  At taking that step.  I think I was better at it when I was their age but it appears to be something I can relearn. 

So when I get too wrapped up in my crazy-grown-up ways of thinking I try to sit back and learn from my kids.  They’ve taught me so much so far and they just keep getting smarter and smarter.  Hopefully one day I will too.