You Could Never Be Better

"You could never be better and yet every day you seem to be better," reads the note that is stuck on the tile above the tub drain as I start my post-S's-bedtime bath.  It is meant for me.  I get the temperature just right and then stand up, creaky back, turn to the sink to splash water on my face.

"There is no way to love you more and yet I do."  S is love-bombing us.  Jon gets one next to his bed, a simple one, "You are the greatest!"  On my nightstand, "You are cool!"  I am?  All signed with a smiley face and her name.

I was away for five days doing recon in Western Massachusetts, scouting out our future home(stead) for when Jon is done with this crazy television stuff.  Speaking of crazy television stuff, I just got an email that I have a pitch meeting Friday for a project I had buried long ago.  I approach it with a combination of amusement and shame.  I will show up, I will switch on the pitch switch, but you can't make me dance like a monkey.  Ah hell, sure you can - 'what if they were vampires instead of aspiring musicians?  What a great idea'!"  Gag.  Stomach turn.  Shame feels like indigestion.

I'd say it's all research, but who wants to read about people pitching?  That world was perfectly rendered decades ago in Robert Altman's The Player.  And then re-treaded throughout seasons of Entourage.  Run-of-the-mill LA agent/manager/network crap leaves me cold.  I have been in a fucked-up relationship with this city for fourteen years.  Now we're at the part where I'm totally done, I've even dumped her, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we still have to co-habitate.  (This is me and LA we're talking about.  My actual relationship with another human is going strong, though his continued relationship with LA is what's keeping us here.  Anyway.)

I wonder if my utter done-ness with LA is part of what put S in a funk last night.  Coming back from dreamy Western Mass into 405 traffic did not make for a smooth landing.  Before she snuck out of bed and played love fairy, scotch-taping notes around, S and I had a talk.  She's been having a hard time with a couple of boys at school who have been telling her not only that girls can't play baseball (It's 2012!) but also that's she's not good, that they're not going to pass to her in soccer, that kind of noise.  (Don't worry, I've talked to the adults at school and they're integrating equality education into gym classes and making sure community circle addresses inclusion).  But S told me last night that their voices have activated a voice inside her that says, "You're no good.  You're mean."  And, most heartstopping for a parent, "You don't belong here."  I just listen, hold her tight, remind myself, just be curious.  Just show up.
"Where's here?"
"Here, like, anywhere...like alive."
Come from a place of pure love but use my skills in place of my parental desire to deny that she ever feels like this.  I hug her a little tighter.
"That sounds like a tough voice."
"Yeah."
"Is there another voice?"
"Like what?"
"Well, let's name that voice that says those mean things.  What would you call that voice?"
"The bad voice?"
"Okay."
"I like it to be simple," S says.
Good plan.  I say, "So what would a voice say that was different from the bad voice?"
"'You're the best?' Or 'You deserve to win?'"
"Yeah.  What would that voice say back to the bad voice when the bad voice says 'you don't deserve to be here'?"
"I don't know.  Maybe that I do deserve to be here?"
"Let's try a few out...'I deserve to be here.'  Or maybe, 'The world needs me here'..."
"How about 'I help people by being here.'"
"Great.  I'm liking that voice."  We talk about how in gardening where you put your sun and water and good rich compost is where your plants grow.  So which voice deserves the sun and water?
"The good voice," she says.  And though she is only seven years old, she understands the metaphor.  She quietly repeats to herself, "I deserve to play, it is good that I am here in the world..." 
I give her a big hug, say goodnight and head out to the living room where I fall onto the couch.  I share the interaction with Jon, who is totally present.  I take the opportunity, the rare moment of tv-free, non-internet distracted face-to-face time to talk about how stuck I feel,  to get really honest.  He gets really defensive, then lets that go.  We work through it, we hug it out, we compromise.  While we talk, I hear S tiptoeing back and forth between the bedrooms, in and out of the bathroom.  Then it gets quiet.  She is asleep.

"You could never be better and yet every day you seem to be better."  While I wait for the bath to fill, I cut up a piece of scrap paper and return the favor, hide some love notes in her shoe, dress-code drawers where I know she'll find them in the morning, her lunch box.  I write, "The world is a better place because you are in it."  Stuff like that.

I have been known to cringe when I go to friends' houses and see affirmations taped to mirrors or lists of positive self-talk pinned next to their computer stations.  I have nodded politely but internally said, "no fucking way" when therapists have suggested I repeat affirmations before bed.  But after last night, I take back those silent eye rolls.  It's just the last dregs of my ancestors' Puritanism that make me feel ashamed of anything that could be considered, god forbid, boastful. 

Whatever water and sunlight or positive notes and reminders it takes to grow that "good voice" until that "bad voice" shrivels up and dies on the vine, I'm in.  Taped to my computer is a tiny note that reads simply, "I love you so much." Smiley face.  S.