The Pivot #6 - Telling My Kids Goodbye Even Though I’m Alive and Well and Probably Not Going Anywhere

View from my airplane window.

I’m writing this on an airplane on my way home to visit family.

Ever since my early teenage years, I have had this belief that if I can imagine my future, I will live to see it. So, on the rare occurrence that I struggle to visualize it (e.g., right before a move, job changes or an international gig), I tend to get panicky. I know it’s just my anxiety. It’s also my need for a false sense of control - my desire for plans I won’t necessarily follow, but that I will make obsessively anyway.

It’s mostly been manageable. Ish.

Last week, however, I was confronted with the ridiculousness of my need to visualize ahead when my ex texted to me that he was taking our kids deep-sea fishing for the day. They were on vacation, and I couldn’t visualize what their experience would be like, no matter how hard I tried.

This was our text exchange:

Baby daddy:

Ok goodbye Jaren. We’re going fishing. Thanks for everything in case we never come back.

Me:

Oh, fuck off. laugh emoji while panicking inside

If anyone knows me and my relationship with anxiety, it’s my ex. He teases me about it incessantly, and I have to say - I’m glad he does. Otherwise, I might not survive it.

I thought about our text exchange for an entire week.

Why don’t we systematically say goodbye to our loved ones just in case we die before we next see them? And I don’t mean "bye" as in “Bye, see you next week!” I mean as in: “In case anything happens to me, I want you to know I love you and have always loved you and I will always look after you from the other side as your guardian angel. Goodbye.”

Will we jinx the Universe or something? Because I systematically refuse to say goodbye to my kids. Instead, I say “I love you, see you after school/next week/tomorrow," etc.

So, as I left, this morning, for my trip home to visit family - without my kids in tow - I decided I would tell them goodbye, and let them know I’ll always look after them, just in case I die during my trip. Not that I predict I will, because I can clearly predict how my week will roll out…seriously, fuck off, anxiety. 

As I dropped my kids off at school, I gave them each a hug and forced a kiss on their cheeks as they squirreled away from me to join their friends, half shouting, “Just in case I die, I want you to know I love you and I will haunt you forever!”

Not quite what I intended to say, but both kids laughed, so I’ll take that as a win.

I guess that’s what happens when you tease your kids all the time. Everything becomes hilarious. All the funny stuff, the stressful stuff, and the stuff that scares us shitless…

Death is such a taboo topic. It’s especially painful, I find, when your kids are young because they haven’t gotten to spread their wings yet. 

I think about my kids and remember being afraid to die before I had the chance to lose my virginity. Really. I remember thinking There’s no way I’m dying today because I haven’t gotten to do it yet. And, sometimes, the thought would make me want to find a boyfriend immediately just to get it all over with so I didn’t have to carry around the anxiety and all the pressure that piggybacked along with it. When I finally lost my virginity at 19 (out of high school), I remember thinking “That’s it? All that anxiety…for this?!” And pretty much felt that way until my 30s. About sex. Not about dying.

Then my fear of dying resurfaced - this time to the power of ten - as soon as I became a parent. For 15 years now, I’ve been plagued with the thought that if I die, my kids will never survive it. I’m too important. I love them too much. And without my love, they will look at the world and say what’s the point? My mother’s love is the ONLY thing that keeps me alive. I have no other interests in life. There is nothing else. Nada. Niet. 

My brain deserves an Oscar for Best Actress in a Drama Series.

But then I put on my logical cap, take a step back and look at the wonderful team of carers they have around them. Their grandparents - all six of them (steps included). Aunts. Uncles. Family friends. Cousins. Best friends. An awesome step-mom.

And then I realize I’m important, sure. But I’m not everything. My kids would survive because they’re surrounded by love, support and understanding. And that thought, alone, lifts a massive amount of pressure from my shoulders.

So, I’m gonna do a little experiment. I’m going to see what happens when I surrender myself to the Universe during this little trip home to see my family - by consciously releasing this anxiety about dying. No, really. Everytime I start to panick, I will remind myself that we already had this discussion, Jaren. SURRENDER. When I think about it - and I mean really think about it - I can’t imagine that the anxiety I create in my very own brain can control my actual destiny. 

I call bullshit. I am not my thoughts.

I am not my thoughts.

I am not my thoughts.

Because Eckhart Tolle told me I’m not, but also because I can’t carry this weight anymore.

Anyhow, we won’t know if this little experiment works until next week when I get back. If I survive the surrender, I mean. I’ll let you know.

-Jaren

What absolutely scares the shit out of you?