Through My Fingers

Last week I posted about an opportunity that slipped through my fingers.

Honestly, when you have lost someone deeply special who is a part of you, you think of that a lot. So many events, experiences, and moments have slipped away, good ones and even the not so good.

The other day I read a verse that captured my attention and filled me a fresh with hope. It is written by John the Apostle and says: “and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:26. When I shared that with Laurens mom she said it this way, “She is not dead, just not here”. We believe that about Lauren. To understand more of that part of our story read “Why we know Lauren is Safe”.

It is amazing how looking back is often crystal clear. I suppose when we are in the moment, the emotions, confusion, pain, and pressure of it all clouds things, and it’s also possible that we have information now that wasn’t available to us before.

One thing I feel I missed was a clear understanding of how anxiety was impacting Lauren. With the clarity of hindsight and understanding I can see that Laurens struggles began when she was in middle school. Some of it was what I would refer to as regular early teen pressures and struggles. Lauren many times felt like she did not fit in. She was extremely self-conscious and thought people did not like her. This was mind boggling to me because she was very well liked by so many people. Lauren was also in many ways a perfectionist, she had to get it right, or be sure it met some arbitrary level of acceptance that only she knew. Perfection is a really tall order for anyone, let alone a developing young person.

I remember a phase that Lauren went through were she started trying everything. She joined the tennis team, the soccer team, volleyball, helping with plays, motocross, and probably a few that I can’t remember now. I occasionally question if this was also where she began to experiment with drugs. I can’t say, I do know that the drugs started somewhere between 7^th and 9^th grade with adderall. Of course, along the way LaLa (Laurens favorite nickname), like many of us, made some connections with one or two people with whom the mix was not helpful, for either one of them. I do know that some of those were very hard on her and her constant struggle with feeling inadequate. Many years later her medical records mention a girl she connected with that in her own words she says “wasn’t good for me”. The other girl would probably say the same.

Throughout this time a lot of things that happened were read by us as indicators of rudeness, disrespect, and rebellion. Experiencing what we went through, and what we learned about anxiety makes me feel that a lot of this must have been LaLa’s reaction to ever rising anxiety and a lack of the tools to cope with it.

Several years after the events of Laurens middle school experience, you can read about a really positive one in “Conversations”, we stumble onto something that really helped us, and Lauren. As we understood more and more about Laurens, anixiety, anorexia, and addiction plus the huge impact that those things had on her brain, we started giving LaLa permission to respectfully let us know when she was feeling overwhelmed and needed to disengage or process things. There were just two requirements: First, she had to be respectful (when anxiety reaches a certain level that’s sometimes hard) and Second, we had to revisit whatever it was we were talking about at the time, we could not just let it go. It helped us a lot. I think it took pressure off Lauren and gave her time to think things through, and most importantly it improved our relationship. The reason is simple, it built emotional connection.

Emotional connection is the most important element of any relationship, at least that is what relational experts tell us, I agree. When we interact with a human being we walk away feeling one of three things. We can feel negative, “that was a bad experience”. We can feel neutral, “That was not bad and not great, it was okay”. Or, we can walk away feeling positive, “I feel good about that”. The more neutral or positive interactions we can have with a person, the greater the emotional connection. It does not mean we do not deal with important or tough issues, we often do. I think a big part of what it means is that we have interacted in a way that makes our addicted loved one “feel” liked, loved or respected”. Those are the three elements that famed relational researcher John Gottman says will lead a marriage to divorce, “I feel you don’t like me, I feel you don’t love me, I feel you don’t respect me”. I believe those same principles must be applied when we love some one with an addiction as well. In fact I think that any relationship will decline when one or those three elements are present. Here is an interesting article about how this can play out in other relationships too “Emotional Intelligence the Key to Leadership Success”.

The other thing that slips through our fingers is time. The other day my wife and I were watching an old episode of ER. We were shocked by the realization that it was over 24 years old, WOW! In this episode Susan (one of the doctors) delivers her sisters baby, they eventually cut to a scene of Susan, the doctor, holding a beautiful baby girl. In an instant it happened to both my wife and I. Our minds went back to the night when we first held Evan (LaLa’s twin brother) and Lauren. I whispered to my wife, “I know that night was meaningful to you in ways that are beyond what I can feel about it.” We sat quietly, holding each other’s hands remembering the joy of that night and moment, realizing, it slipped through our fingers.

We can’t stop anything from slipping through our fingers, but we can value, enjoy, and celebrate each moment we are given. Even when it is for just a little while.

This weeks featured image is by Brooke Shaden, it is called “Heavy Hands”. The title for this weeks post was inspired by one of Brooke’s post “Through My Finger”