While I’m proud of my son for understanding enough of what I was asking that he was able to let me go for a while so I could work, I just don’t feel good about asking my son to “be brave” for me. Having given it some thought, and as silly as it may sound, I think I’ve figured out why:
I do want my son to be brave. I do not want him to ever have to be brave “for me.”
Today is the “make or break” point for my schedule this week, which “obviously” means I’m going to have to cloister myself a lot today. I put “obviously” in quotes because it is obvious . . . to everyone but the three-year-old in the house. After the events of Tuesday, I’ll admit that I was dreading this day, but so far, except for one thing, it hasn’t been so bad. This may sound silly, but . . .
Trying to get the point across to my son that I needed to go and get some work done, and that I needed him to let me do that, I asked him to “be brave.” I’m not sure this was the right thing to ask, but without really thinking about it, those were my exact words. This bothers me a little.
What bothers me more is that he seemed to understand me.
This may just be my ego talking here, but I’m hoping it’s my sense of balance.
I just wanted to make it clear that I’m really not behind schedule every week. It’s just that usually when I’m on or ahead of schedule (like I was last week, for instance), it just never seems interesting enough to mention at the time.
You know you’ve adapted to the digital age when you find yourself thinking, “You know, I could get all that information online for free, but that would take a lot of time, and that’s actually a pretty reasonable offline compilation fee . . .”
There are some people in life who, when they ask you for something and you tell them you can do it, but only at great personal cost to yourself, they tell you it’s not important enough to put yourself out over.
Then there are those who not only ask you to do it anyway, but ask you to record your pain so they can enjoy it later.
You’re right, it’s not that simple.
Now stop using that as an excuse to not do anything.
When they call or text you early in the morning saying things like, “I hope this didn’t wake you . . .”
In real life, terrible things happen all the time . . . tragic misunderstandings, gross unfairness, horrible maiming, premature deaths, and so on and so on. Naturally, the realms of fiction reflect all of this and more.
It just doesn’t tend to reflect it very well, with too many authors choosing to wallow in tragic moments to ludicrous extremes, while others chose to touch on the effects of tragedy only briefly, if at all, as if they are hoping they might ignore it into non-existence.
Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.
As much as I agree with this general sentiment, I must confess that I have also come to appreciate the all-important difference between being tempted and being interested in following said temptation. In many ways, everything comes at a price, and some prices simply aren’t worth paying.
– Robert Alan
Candles & Curses 