Published on Parents and Prose on March 24, 2019.

Each one of us faces our own unique challenges. Not one of us are created the same. Not one of us follows the same path. And our families, the situations we’re presented with, the challenges and roll of the dice, are just as different.

No two of us are the same.

Just like if you have children, I’m sure you’ve noticed, they’re also different—sometimes surprisingly so given that they (possibly) came from the same set of parents and raised the exact same way.

This also means that you can’t compare.

Truly, you can’t.

You can’t compare two siblings and you can’t compare families, you certainly can’t use your observation or opinions as some measuring stick and think it’s gonna get you accurate results on whatever it is you’re looking to measure (parenting, writing, success). Your ego (or even mine, at times) might think it can and that comparing is actually a good thing—but it’s not.

Comparing and measuring just flat-out doesn’t work.

Because again… we’re different. It might look like you’re comparing apples to apples, but one might be a pink lady apple and another might be a Granny Smith or a Gala. You can easily bite into one and enjoy the heck out of that taste, but another might be perfect for baking and not so much for eating (unless you’re into the slightly sour/tart taste and good for you!).

My kids are the ones who first taught me this shift in thinking when it comes to comparing and not comparing on a really deep, intuitive level.

Back when we’d attempted to go through early intervention with Kate, back before she was even three-years-old, I witnessed how the evaluators only cared about certain results (caveat: this was my experience; yours, if you’ve gone through this process, might have been totally different and wonderful). For us and our experience, the evaluators only cared about the results listed on their little sheets, the specific answers that would indicate if there was something wrong or what age-range Kate fell into, developmentally.

For them, it didn’t matter that Kate, even at two, could give directions all the way to Grandma Charlie’s house (a good 40 miles away with lots of freeway in between) or Eric for example, who when we went to check into the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas (we’d stayed there several months earlier), promptly took my mom’s hand, walked her out the front doors, and proceeded to take her to the Container Park—a whole seven blocks down Freemont Street. He remembered exactly where to go (and no, my mom had no clue where she was going).

My kids wouldn’t have gotten any ‘points’ on those evaluations.

Also for our particular evaluators, it didn’t matter that my kids, both with a receptive language delays, wouldn’t have even understood what was being asked of them. (They are also the strong-willed type so the chances of Kate or Eric actually doing what was asked of them was… slim at best.)

The amazing gifts my kids have, these little differences that make them who they were (crazy good memory and spatial awareness), wouldn’t have shown up on those tests because those answers didn’t count. Instead, the tests would have indicated there was something ‘wrong’. And our experience with Kate, they pushed the wrong kind of services and it wouldn’t have helped her. In fact, it would have been detrimental to her growth and her anxiety and her trust in language if we’d done what they wanted…

Because they couldn’t see the whole of who she was. Because she’s different. Because she’s not like any other kid who’s walked through those doors (and that goes double for Eric).

As I’ve learned, there’s nothing at all wrong with my kids.

They’re just different—and I love them about them.

Hell, I’m different.

You see, we are each individuals, each with are own unique framework and mind and body for living, and what works for one family absolutely won’t work for another. Again, because we’re individuals with our own thoughts, feelings, temperaments—heck, we each have different baggage from our childhoods that we carry around and that certainly shapes who we are, even right at this very moment.

Why is this coming up for me again?

Actually, the idea for this blog has been knocking around in my head for a few months now. Back in October I went to a business workshop and something one of the speaker’s said really irritated me. Like—really irritated me. She had gone through an ordeal that put her in the hospital and she absolutely had a full plate (including a toddler at home and possibly a baby on the way—my memory’s a bit fuzzy on that). Despite what life had thrown her way, she’d managed to write several novels.

This, by the way, is amazing. Wonderful. I am happy that she was able to do this, that writing and storytelling helped her through (what I’m guessing) was a tough ordeal.

What I wasn’t okay with was her sitting up there and saying to all of us: “So, if I can do that, write all those novels, then you can do it.”

Her intention, I will say, wasn’t wrong and it wasn’t bad. Her intention was to shove away any excuse some of us might have for not getting our butt in the chair often enough and writing enough. That, they were all just excuses and if she could do that, well, all our excuses and reasons didn’t matter.

That is the part I call bullshit.

That is the part that rubbed me wrong—because it wasn’t true.

At least, it wasn’t true for me.

Sure, it might be true for her but, she’s a completely different person than me. I’m not only an introvert, I’m also an empath., That means when my kids (who are with me, each and every day) have a hard, emotional time, I’m doing my very best to stay grounded, to help them through that wave (or tsunami), and trying my damnedest to remain the parent I want to be. Some days, some weeks, that’s the most I can do. To even show up and try is success. When I went through that dark and scary time, back when we didn’t know what was ‘wrong’ with Kate, I couldn’t write at all. I was terrified. In my heart I knew there was nothing ‘wrong’ with Kate and yet that’s all any of the professional kept telling me and I had to slowly, slowly find my grounding again. To tell the doctors, “No.” To insist that I knew who my kids were, on a soul-knowing, gut-level.

I couldn’t’ write at all. I just… couldn’t.

Even though I desperately wanted to.

My focus was on my kids; my focus was exactly where it needed to be. There was simply no space for my inner two-year-old (which is what I call my creative voice) to come out and play.

There have been times in my life where I didn’t have the space to play. And yet, for me, the choices I made were exactly right—for me.

After the presenter finished her talk, I actually met another woman, an expectant mom, in fact (I’m guessing the universe nudged us together). She revealed to me that she was now terrified of trying to be a mom and a writer because she knew, on her own gut level, that she couldn’t do what this other mom had done, so why even try? Why try to be a mom and a writer?

This expectant mom understood how her mind and body worked, and it’s not the way this other writer had gone up there and said: this is the way it’s done.

This speaker’s words not only rubbed me wrong on the mom level—because we are all different and we’ve been all dealt a unique hand of cards—but I also realized this same idea doesn’t stop when it comes to parenting. It has to do with health. It has to do with the health of your family. Whether or not you’re caring for aging parents and the emotional upheaval that’s pulling you through.

This really hit home for me when I went to the Anthology Workshop hosted by WMG Publishing (basically a roomful of professional writers trying to sell short stories to editors). I got a chance to hear other people’s stories, but not just their fiction stories, but their life stories.

And wow, was it a success what some of those writers had done, just simply showing up and turning in their stories.

Just… wow.

Caring for ailing parents or perhaps caring for their own health and unnamed sickness and the fear that comes up with that—of not knowing what’s wrong with you. That’s scary. That’s hard. And to stand up there and say that if we can’t go and write three or four novels while dealing with that, when our inner lives are in such turmoil… is wrong.

And again, it’s bullshit.

Here’s what I’ve learned on my journey, especially with these kids who are so different, we came to me knowing pretty darn well who they are (and the rest of us are trying to play catch-up):

We, as humans, live in the gray.

Sure there are some constants, like don’t hit and don’t kill people, be respectful even if you disagree (I’m just pulling these off the top of my head). But you know… there is something called self-defense. There is a moment of standing up, even if you’re respectful, and telling someone, “No.”

And I’ve learned what’s true for me, isn’t true for you.

Or what’s true for me right at this moment, may not be true a week from now.

Our lives are fluid. They’re constantly changing. We’re (hopefully) constantly growing. And we need to have allowances for those differences.

That my story is mine, and it’s true for me, and your story is yours and it’s true for you.

We need to have allowances for this. We need to have kindness and respect for each other. The more open we are to these allowances and differences, the more I think we can reach for some pretty amazing heights.

And sure, my life is challenging at times and my journey with two differently wired kids has had its ups and downs, but I also know that someone trying to parent and find her way with anxiety, is leading a completely different life than me.

I know, too, that I have this incredibly wonderful and supportive spouse. Sean has always stood by my writing, all the years of time and money, of coming with me to these workshops so I can be both a writer and a mom, even using his vacation days to do so. That he’s fully onboard and believes in our different approach with our kids and education, to go out into the world itself and learn by living. Even the choices we’ve made with our parenting—I’m aware not everyone has this and believe me, I am so grateful for Sean.

I can’t imagine what it’s like stepping out there, doing something so different and not having the support of the person closest to you.

Or if that closest person to you as health issues or the thousands of other life rolls that come our way…

Our lives are different from each other and that’s a good thing.

So let’s  be kind, please. Let’s not fall into the comparison trap—and believe me, that’s not an easy thing to do. I just sat in a roomful of amazing writers, who I was cheering for and whose stories I loved, but it’s still hard to sit there and hear the reasons your story wasn’t chosen. And on the flipside, I also got to see the amazing work those writers did, stories that I loved or didn’t, that got bought by those editors…

And then I got a chance to hear a snippet of their lives, of their actual stories, of how they even got to this place, this moment. They wrote these stories for the workshop. They did their best and showed up.

We’re not Supermen and Superwomen who can go there and finish everything on our to-do lists, flawlessly and perfectly, who can juggle several different balls at once and never drop a single one—seriously, I don’t know this person. This person doesn’t exist and if they do, I can pretty much guarantee you they’re not living in the joy. They’re not present in the lives they’re living.

So let’s stop this narrative. Let’s stop trying to be perfect—and comparing ourselves to what we think perfect should be or even what success should look like.

Let’s just go out there, do our best, and fall down a few times (like I certainly did at the workshop—at least, it felt like I did). And then, let’s pick ourselves up and try again.

Let’s celebrate our differences and our kids’ differences.

Let’s celebrate how our lives are shifting and changing, taking each of us to different places and different directions. Because we’re all different and that’s what makes our stories—whether fictional stories or life stories—so damn amazing.

And then, let’s share those stories.

The only way to change the narrative, the only way to shift the ‘this-is-the-way-it’s-done’ mentality, is by opening up and sharing our stories.

I’ll start with me.

My name is Chrissy Wissler. I’m writer, a mother, a wife, an empath—and every day I struggle to show up and do the best I can. There’s so much more I want to do, so many more stories I want to tell, adventures to live and experience, but some days, some weeks, are just hard.

Really hard.

Some days all I can do is the basics. Some days it feels like I can take on the world. Some days it’s a struggle to find the energy to smile, let alone write a story. And as hard as those moments are… I’m learning that it’s okay. It’s okay to rest. It’s okay to just take a moment and reset and… breathe.

Just breathe.

Because what really matters is picking myself up off the floor and trying again.

That was me this week.

Picking myself off the floor, sitting down at the computer, trying to find the fun again. Or it’s showing up and breathing and doing my damnedest to stay calm while the four-year-old is completely incapable of regulating his emotions and letting stuff go (I’m fairly certain he’s currently focusing on other areas, like language). So, yeah, that was me carrying him out of farmers market in one arm, protecting both of us, while pulling the wagon-laden with grocery in the other. When he’s like that… it’s rough. It’s like being continually slammed with an emotion truck that doesn’t let up and doesn’t, even for one second, take his foot off the gas. When Eric’s incapable of finding his calm, I need to try—for the both of us.

So that was me this week. I showed up and… tried. I did the best that I could with the energy that I had and no, no I didn’t hit my weekly writing goals and… and that’s okay, too. Showing up, sometimes, is success right there, though it’s often hard to keep that in perceptive. But I need to remember that. I need to celebrate these little wins, these little bits of progress. It might not the four novels, but it’s still success—

It’s my success.

So, how about you? What stories would you like to share? What stories of yours would you like to celebrate?