Own Your Shitshow
So, a guy was telling me the story of his shitshow and how the characters were making him crazy.
I told him this story:
There was a family who had a grandma with dementia. Grandma was pleasantly confused. She didn’t know what was going on most of the time, but she was happy. That was all that mattered. One thing that Grandma really wanted, though, was to have money in her purse. Why not? She’d worked all her life. She knew she had some money. Why wouldn’t her loving family give her the money she’d earned? The family insisted that Grandma would lose the money. They would buy her what she wanted. All she had to do was ask, but Grandma didn’t want to ask for her own money. They fought about it. After the issue didn’t go away, the family gave Grandma $5 to keep in her purse. All was good again. One day while at the store, Grandma picked out a bright orange lipstick that she wanted to buy. The family didn’t want Grandma to have that lipstick because it was hideous. Grandma was going to use her $5 to buy it come hell or high water. A public meltdown ensued.
I asked the guy, who is crazier in this scenario? Grandma or the family? I assert it is the family.
When we think of our own family shitshows or shitshows that we choose to engage in, aren’t we the craziest of all if we expect others to be/act in ways that they cannot even if they wanted to? Seriously. If we choose to argue, fight, and get into power struggles in these situations, we are choosing to drive ourselves crazy.
Acceptance is acknowledging that things are not as we wish. They are as they are. We can choose to be involved, or we can walk away. But, we have the choice. Own your shitshow. Don’t be a victim of it.
That isn’t to say that there won’t be pain. I mean it is painful that Grandma lost her memory. It is painful that she wasn’t the person the family once knew. However, they don’t have to make it worse by insisting that she magically re-materialize with fully functioning thoughts on demand. This is frustrating for everyone.
There is much in life that is painful that we don’t ask for, that we don’t create. There is much pain in life that we cannot walk away from. The question is how do we handle it so that we don’t lose our minds.
At the end of the story, the guy said, “I can’t figure out if I am Grandma or the family in the story.” We laughed out loud. THAT is how you own your shitshow. All in.
