a true story about big feelings
Show Me What You Saw
The light clicks off, her finger shoots toward the corner, and just like that it isn't her room anymore.
the realization
I stopped trying to talk her out of the corner and just went and looked at it with her. The second I took the scary thing seriously instead of explaining it away, she had room to get brave on her own.
Lights off, and suddenly it wasn't her room anymore. Her finger shot toward the corner and she went stiff. No, no, no. I knew that face. Something was in there and there was no talking her out of it.
have you ever felt this way too?
So I did the tired-parent thing. That's just your cardigan on the chair, honey. Go to sleep. I said it three different ways, calm and reasonable, like reasonable had ever won an argument at 9pm. And the more I explained, the smaller she got. She pulled the blanket up to her nose and just watched me not-getting-it.
You can't argue a kid out of the dark. So I stopped. I climbed into her tiny bed, knees up around my ears, and I looked where she was looking. You saw something. Okay. Show me. We stared into that corner together, both of us, for real. She handed her bear over and put him on guard duty facing the wall. And after a while she whispered that the corner was only a little bit scary now.
Her shoulders came down. Her hand found mine in the dark. She checked the corner one more time, just to be sure, and then her eyes closed with her hand still holding onto mine.
what I found myself saying
"I stopped explaining and just said, okay, show me what you saw."
"You saw something real. I'm right here, we'll look at it together."
"Bear can be on guard duty. He'll watch the corner while you sleep."
