Brave Enough To Be Bliss

and determine what her tolerance level for fear was. And I have also seen too many physician marriages strained or ended because of a lack of acceptance and support of the time commitment that comes with a spouse’s chosen occupation. It was important , if she continued with the relationship, that she did not think she could get him to change occupations just so she didn’t have to be scared.

She seemed to give it very serious thought and it’s likely they talked about it also. But before long, she sounded very comfortable with it and also quite proud of him for serving our community and country.

While I had been very cognizant of trying not to overstep since she was an adult, that was one issue I felt was important enough to mention . I didn’t always get it right, but I tried to focus most on listening to her : not telling her what to do, but rather asking questions to help her find her own answers. If ever I’m not there, I want her to have the skills she needs to work through concerns on her own. I have always felt honored that she shares her thoughts, concerns, and experiences with me, but I think listening first has been the key to building that trust. After the divorce, I made a conscious decision to ensure that her life was impacted as minimally as possible. One of those decisions was not to make her room a big deal. She had proven she has the skill to make a bed, so I had done my job in teaching her. And while I personally prefer for beds to be made as soon as they’re empty, it just wasn’t something at her age I was going to argue with her about. I decided I would save any disagreements for things that were much more important than making her bed. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved the book, Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven, and think it has a lot of good lessons in it that I agree with and recommend. At that time, though, I knew our situation, the challenges my daughter was facing, and I recognized that the issue with having every bed in the house made was more of a control issue of mine than something that truly made a difference in the whole scheme of life. I decided to let the bed making go and hoped that someday she would decide she liked having the bed made for herself. I had done my job as a parent, she could complete the task of making a bed, I just wasn’t going to argue with her if she chose not to make her own bed each day. If I was working upstairs in the office right beside her bedroom and her unmade bed was bothering me, I would either close the bedroom door or make it myself. If I made it, she would thank me for doing so. I decided I would do what made me comfortable and let her do things within her room that made her comfortable since at that time she had very little control over all the negative things that were going on in her life. (And just so you know, she and Will have a deal that whoever gets out of bed last in the morning makes the bed, so it all worked out just fine and I didn’t ruin her for life with that decision.) The point is, I think there is great wisdom in the adages to pick one’s battles in relationships and to let the little things go because life is too short to hurt people or relationships over things that don’t matter in the big picture. I am grateful I had a history of bravely listening to my heart with Kylee and didn’t let an unmade bed impact our relationship. I chose her comfort and our peace instead of allowing my fear of how an imperfectly kept house might reflect on me to guide my parenting decisions. She had a lot more important things to focus on in her life at that time. If only I had been that brave with everyone. The first opportunity I had to spend time with Will was when he came with us to church and lunch on Mother’s Day. I was impressed with how he dressed and especially admired his clean and well-kept shoes. He wore a nice button-down shirt and khaki pants with cognac cap toe oxfords. In the future, I also saw him wear those shoes with jeans, which is an exceptional look, so if opening her door hadn’t completely won me over, the cognac cap toe oxfords definitely did. He was kind, respectful, and fun to talk to, and they seemed perfectly comfortable together. We spent the afternoon on the deck just hanging out and talking on a beautiful spring afternoon. And after only that one day together, I was 90% sure they would end up married someday. Call it mother’s intuition, a gut feeling, or a good guess, but I just knew and told her dad as much, so he’d be prepared when he met him a couple weeks later at Kylee’s cousin’s high school graduation party in St. Louis.

146