I have never understood people’s misapprehension that integrity is solely a matter of how we show up in public spaces. Certainly, integrity comes into play in our public lives, whether at work or worship, in politics or in the parking lot, but for me, the true proving ground for integrity is in my private life, particularly with my family.
When I was younger I used to think that the complications of family were attributable to not having chosen my family. I do, in fact, believe now that our souls have some hand in choosing our family of origin, but the me that I recognize as myself did not feel, at least when I was younger, that I had any choice in the matter. However, I was convinced that, given the choice, I would build a family that was different.
I wasn’t entirely wrong. My chosen family is different in some respects. There’s less trauma, for one, especially since I exited my marriage, for which I couldn’t be more grateful. But it is still rife with complications and conundrums despite my best, or at least most willful, efforts. I admit now that it’s just the nature of the beast.
In part, it’s because my whole self shows up with my family. I am capable of my best and worst and everything in between. Whereas I expect to manage myself– my emotions, communication, and behavior– constantly in public spaces, in the privacy of my home my guard comes down. My deepest yearnings, hottest anger, and most transcendent love all come rushing up, right under the surface of my skin. Before I know it, sometimes, they are pouring out of my mouth, guiding my steps, and I am in the thick of my own complications in the company of others. Others who I love, with whom it feels like the stakes are the highest.
If I fuck up a job or flub a conversation with someone at the grocery store I can more readily imagine there will be other chances to do things better. But if I screw things up with my chosen family, with my children? I don’t get to just go out in search of the next family with whom I can, miraculously, be better.
And it’s not just me, and managing myself, that makes family a hotbed of complication. The other people involved are also, hopefully, trying to show up in the fullness of themselves, which seems to be as confounding for them as it is for me. This begs the question: how do we each exist authentically, while simultaneously spanning the bridge between our respective truths to honor each other?
If everyone is given space and encouragement to live with fullness and integrity, the intimacy is richer, for sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
It’s 11 o’clock on a school night and I am standing in my underwear crying in the doorway to my daughter’s room. I told her to turn the lights off and go to sleep an hour ago, but she is still up. Crying with frustration because my kids won’t go to bed was a not infrequent feature of their toddler years, but we're more than a decade beyond those days. However, this moment is just the latest in a long line of small defiances and disconnections between us of late and I have surpassed my capacity to contain my frustration and sadness. They leak out of my eyes, my mouth, tears and words tumbling over each other.
I don’t just want Ruby to go to bed. I want her to come back to me. My goofy, playful, smiling, occasionally snarky kid has been replaced by someone withdrawn and disengaged. Whose friends come into my house and do not acknowledge me, simply trudging up the stairs to disappear behind her bedroom door. When I go into the room to speak to her they do not even look up from their phones.
It’s a small town. I know some of them are hanging out in the park downtown, smoking pot. Given my own experience as a teen, I will be less tweaked out by this in two or three years, but some of these children are still in middle school. I have queried Ruby as gently as I can about whether she, too, is starting to smoke. She swears she is not. Perhaps, that is true. Perhaps, like me at her age, she lies to preserve some sense of autonomy.
I don’t know if crying in the doorway is the “right” thing to do. It is, at least, the true thing. I miss my girl. I hate not knowing what’s going on in her life. And I hate having these friends of hers coming in and out of my home, sullen and silent, seemingly lacking in any gratitude that I keep letting them in the door.
Wrung out, I dry my tears with the back of my hand and tell her I love her. She promises to go to bed, and not to drag the entire horde of teenagers into the house this weekend. Only the ones who are actually capable of saying hello, please, and thank you, which we have now established is the baseline expectation.
The next morning she smiles at me in the car on the way to school and even laughs a little. I smile and laugh, too. I tell her I love her as she climbs out of the car. She responds that she loves me, too.
It is something, maybe even everything.
Saturday afternoon she calls me. “Jane can’t come to sleep over, so can Nikki come instead?”, she asks.
“We discussed expectations. If you’re willing to talk to her about how to conduct herself in our house and she’s willing to try, then she’s welcome. If you’re not willing to have that conversation or she’s not willing to try, then no”, I respond.
“Okay”
“Okay… So, I’ll see you all at 8?”
“Yup”
They troop in right on time. Nikki greets me and even smiles. She also lines up to hug me when I come in to say good night, which is beyond my expectations, but sweet.
In the car on the way to pick up breakfast Sunday morning, I take note of the change in Nikki’s behavior and thank Ruby for her part in that transformation. “I think she didn’t understand she was being rude”, she muses. “She’s shy and awkward around adults.”
“Sure”, I deadpan. “At fourteen, super emo is way easier than shy and awkward.”
She chuckles as we head into the store, and then we wander around, chattering and giggling. Have I broken through the wall between us with my vulnerability, or is this just a momentary reprieve in our stand-off? Not knowing, I simply savor the moment, my arm looped through hers, her body pressed to mine.
She carries the boxes of pastries to the car and smiles at me in the sunshine. It is something. Maybe even everything.
It’s the raw vulnerability, isn’t it? Whether in public or private, anytime we are raw and vulnerable, our emotions surging forward to grab the wheel, it is harder to show up with care and kindness, with some eye for where we stop and other people begin. It is harder to bridge the gap between our truths and honor each other.
But that is part of our practice, is it not? Not just to live into our own integrity, but to honor and encourage the integrity of others everywhere we go. Not everyone will rise to the occasion. We will not always rise to the occasion. We just keep practicing anyway. No matter how skilled we get, we never stop adjusting, stretching, and trying again. To actively participate in life, which is always changing and evolving around us, what other choice do we have?
The Proving Ground