Tonight I arrived back home from a round-trip Texas to Utah jaunt in the car with my boys. The visit for my sisters wedding was so wonderful, I really can't say the car-ride wasn't worth it. But, that doesn't mean it was perfect.
Our favorite Z-ism's on the way to Utah started when we crossed over from New Mexico to Colorado. He had located the Four Corners on Google Maps. For you non-Western or non-American folks? This is the intersection between Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, in which the boundaries exist in orthogonal lines. Smartphone in hand, when he noticed we were not going directly from NM to UT he became convinced that we had deviated from our course. He didn't really make it a mystery that we "had no idea where we were going", "had made the wrong turn, "were driving in circles", "were going the wrong way", "had missed the turn to Grandpa & Grandma's house", and (my personal favorite) "were just driving in circles until dinnertime". These statements were repeated regularly from Colorado to my parents house. Yes son, because the joytime of being in the car for 2 straight days with small children and hubby...is my heaven-on-earth. TIC.
On the return trip Z's repeated phrase shifted, garnering the tone of one of his recent pre-springbreak declarations, "Everyone else has better siblings than me." Before I share his mantric repetition, I must admit, he got this from me, AND it rings of a stance that soooo many of us take against each other, all too often. Here is the text I sent out to my family, to which my siblings promptly responded with quotes from our own past:
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Yes, the "Summer, stop breathing on me!" was exclaimed more than once by my own lips. Button pushing, reciporacal annoyance, or whatever you want to term it, is one of the common denominators in most families. My husband and I couldn't even roll our eyes in joint exasperation. We glanced knowingly at one another in joint acknowledgement that we too had just played out this scenario 30 minutes prior, and thousands of times before. For those of you that don't know us well? Johnathan is the self proclaimed "button pusher", and I'm the hypercritical "paranoid eye"...most of the time. If we really break it down though? When we get into these roles we are both playing out the "heart of conflict", "heart of war" battle. I think the Arbinger Institute explains these positions well in their promotion of changing our approach to others with a "heart at peace". In an article titled "Resolving the heart of conflict", James Ferrell of the Arbinger Institute states:
"When I choose to see people as objects, I become invested in seeing them poorly, which investment invites them to respond poorly to me, which mistreatment I then count as justification. I end up valuing problems more than solutions and conflict more than peace. The grim truth is that whenever we start seeing others as objects rather than as people, we value justification more than results and find more advantage in war than we find in peace. In conflict, the heart of the matter is that our hearts have come to find advantage in conflict. Until we can escape this need for justification, we will continue to wallow (and find advantage) in the problems of the past. Until we can learn to acknowledge the obvious truth—that my coworkers, family members, and fellow citizens are as important and legitimate as I am—then my relationships will continue to be strained and our results together much less than they could be."
Well for now, at least our results together got us all home safe & sound, but that doesn't mean we aren't "Still Truckin" for the long haul. Though, we are blessed with some fabulous scenery for our journey.
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| Bend in the Four Corners, iPhoto. Janelle Jensen Fritz |
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