Denial: A Useful Tool

Ahh, denial.  It can be such a useful tool.  It prevents us from accepting reality, from fully engaging in the present or dealing with things looming over us.  For example, everyone is so excited because it is March and March means spring.  In reality, March means a good three more weeks of winter before it is officially spring, but we use denial about the winter portion and focus instead on the spring portion.  

Shh.  I can't hear you.

Prom season is looming at school and the use of denial is in full force.  He likes me but I don't like him but we can still have a good time at prom.  Ha!  Or, I like him but he won't ever like me so I will pretend I don't like him and then I won't get hurt.  Good luck with that one.  That has a night of weeping and writing bad poetry written all over it.  One of the fun parts of my job is that I regale my favorites with bad stories from my past.  They are funny to me now and they make them laugh and feel better about their current boy/dating/prom issues.  For example, don't ever go to prom with someone who breaks up with you two weeks before just because you bought a dress.  At the time, I thought he would see me all dressed up and beautiful and forget all about the breaking up part.  In reality, he spent the entire night flirting with the girl who was to be his next girlfriend while I pretended not to notice.  Denial keeping me frozen at the table with a sickened smile on my face.  

I used denial between high school and college to deal with gaining a lot of weight.  I wasn't packing the pounds on, my jeans were just tight from the dryer.  I used denial daily when with my ex by thinking marriage was like this, that you were supposed to hate your spouse with intensity of a thousand suns.  We thought from the start we should have kids right away.  Right, because nothing makes a bad marriage better than throwing some kids in the mix.  Luckily that did not happen, but denial definitely reigned supreme as a coping mechanism for me through those years.

As a parent, do you ever find that you use denial when dealing with your kids and the things they throw at us?  When W's eyes were crossed and his vision terrible and his development delayed , we always thought he would catch up, he would be "normal", he would get to where everyone else was.  It took some very precise and definitive words from his eye doctor for us to see she could make his eyes look pretty, but he was always going to be limited by them.  At the time, her words were like bullets, but I am so grateful to her for using them to pierce through our shields of denial.  I find sometimes that I am unable to effectively parent on something that has taken me by surprise and I use denial as a delay in dealing with it.  Sometimes it is effective because it gives me time to think about what I want to address, what the problem really is and what we can do to fix it.  Sometimes it is not effective because I forget all about it.

Right now I using denial is full force because my neighbor is moving.  Even though I have known for months she is going to move, I placed that thought on a shelf in my head and haven't taken it down.  We would talk about it, I would encourage her and then I would quickly not think about it again.  However, now that the FOR SALE sign is up on her lawn, it is very real.  She will be gone at the end of the month and I am just so sad.  Marijohn is one of the most wonderful people I know.  We have had countless cups of coffee and a few glasses of wine together and she always listens, she always hears me and she provides me a sense of comfort I will miss tremendously.  She checks in with me when Bill is gone for a long time and makes sure I am sane.  She watches out for my kids.  She has run to the store for me, she has picked up kids for me, she has helped me time and time again.  She is a beautiful, smart woman and we tease her that when she moves she should take up with a man half her age.  She says no more men, but we'll see.  Marijohn is a good sport; she joined our book club and sat through our yammerings on schools and kids until her eyes glazed over, but she kept coming and she kept teaching us something about life each time she did.  My favorite lesson was that woman over a certain age still say the "f" word.  

I think that you are very lucky in life when you can meet someone and make friends with someone who is not your age, who is not living the life you are living right now.  At first,  you find commonalities in other things, like books or being neighbors and as you slowly learn more about this person, a true friendship develops.  You might not be at the same stage of life, but there are similarities at each stage that you can appreciate and bond over.  

So Marijohn, because you are so amazing, because you have touched our lives in small and big ways, I will not use denial about your moving.  I will not hide in the house or pretend it is not happening.  I will help you pack. I will also help drink your wine because you do not want to pack that.  Most importantly though, I will also tell you straight up, thank you.  Thank you for being my friend.  Thank you for loving my kids.  Thank you for letting Bill help you with things you would rather do yourself.  Thank you for making me laugh and holding my hand when I had to cry.  Thank you for loving books the way I do.  Thank you modeling independence, strength and confidence in such a beautiful way.  I have always said that when I hit a certain age, I am giving up and going round.  However, I think that now when I hit that certain age, I will just think about you and try to be more like you instead.  (Bill thanks you for that.)  I do plan on being rude to whoever moves into your house simply because they are not you.  That is not denial, that is displacement, and I think it shows real growth.