The Check Engine Light

We've all see in it at some point in our life.  Life is moving along rather uneventfully and then there it is, the God DAMN Check Engine Light.  It's yellow glow reminding us that we better be mindful of our car maintenance and better get things looked at right away or else we may find ourselves stranded on the side of the road somewhere.  I wonder if how you react to a check engine light reveals something about your character.

My mini-van's check engine light goes on and off from time to time.  I got freaked out when I first saw it.  My husband plugged it in and it's a bad sensor.  Don't ask me which, cause I don't remember.  All I really care to know about the vehicle I'm driving is whether or not it's going to get me home safely today.  When my car failed to break  down each time it rubbed it's little yellow glow in my face, I learned to dismiss it.  But every time I dare to forget about it entirely it pops up and reminds me that I really should care. 

Because anyone who knows me knows I love a good metaphor, I'm adopting the Check Engine light as my metaphor of the week.  Some people like me are extremely vocal when they're having a tough time, but then there are those for whom a small, quiet glowing warning light is all that exists to indicate to the outside world that something is wrong.  In my magical car metaphor, I'm that clunky noise you try to describe to your mechanic in a rather sad explanation of what's wrong, but I worry about the people and mothers especially who never show any outward signs of distress.  I hope that someone is paying attention to these women and saying to themselves "I better figure out what's wrong before something worse happens."

We all get so used to asking each other, "How are you?" but hardly anybody really expects a real answer.  We wait two seconds for the obligatory "fine" and carry on with our own preoccupations.  I'll never forget that there was one person I asked years ago, who dared to give me a real answer.  I was walking through the halls of my workplace, busily trying to get accomplished whatever my current task was and I happened to say hello to a co-worker and asked him how he was.  As it turned out, his mother was dying and for the next half hour we talked about it.  It was a very personal conversation for co-workers and yet I felt somehow that is was natural.  Losing my Dad had given me a common vantage point to understand what he was going through, to see the very spot on life's path that those who haven't been there simply cannot.

I'm not sure why he trusted me enough to share his feelings with me, but I have the theory that his check engine light had simply turned on and he had been waiting for someone to notice.  In turn he became someone I could talk to when my light blinked on. 

I hope that I'm the type of person who cares enough to notice when someone really needs another person to simply care enough to know what's going on in their lives.  But the truth is we all get preoccupied with our own lives and let's face it, it's incredibly easy to ignore that small glowing light in others that warns that things are not as great as they might appear.  Though I sometimes worry that my over sharing nature might make some people uncomfortable, I know exactly what happens to me when I ignore my light for too long.

It's for this reason that I implore the stoic, the polished and perfected, and the perpetual caretakers to speak up and maybe give someone a chance to really listen beyond the "fine".  Of everyone else I make this small and simple request- every once in a while stop and look around you and really take note of the silent, steady glow.  There's usually a light on somewhere.

Do As I Do, Not As I SAY

We tell our children to be nice, play with others, be gentle, take turns, etc. but the truth is many adults don't follow these "rules."  I don't know how we keep up the expectations of good manners, when they seem to be the "exception" and not the "rule" these days.

The truth is we just don't live in an altruistic world.  People seem to be out for themselves and for some, if that happens to come at the expense of others it's considered acceptable.  To start, we don't speak to each other with respect.  E-mail or texting makes us brave and say things we might otherwise bite our tongue about.  Perhaps its the degradation of the human conversation. 

We don't get much practice anymore.  We speak primarily through third party mediums, like e-mail, texts, and social media sites that require that we be brief, casual, and one-minded.  We "speak" with only "us" in mind.  There is little expectation of the listener at all.  So without an "audience" to all our "talking" we are really just speaking to hear ourselves talk.

The adage for parents used to be "do as I say, not as I do."  The expectation is that children can't for many safety and practical purposes do what adults do.  They can't, as my daughter has been trying with fervor these days, help me cook.  There are too many "what if" factors that make the risk totally unworthy of any reward she may feel in "helping mommy."  So she gets to help mommy empty the dishwasher or hand me hangers or clothes pins while I'm doing the laundry instead.  But the desire to do that which she is not allowed seems ever more interesting to her.

Becoming a mom means many things, but once you hit the toddler years it becomes clear you are a role model.  The first time you hear your accidental slipped out bad word come out the mouth of your innocent toddler, you know it.  You are now aware that there are eager eyes upon you all the time, looking to YOU - the be all and end all of role models - MOM.  So here it is, we want our children to listen to us, but we are rearing our children during an age where "REAL" conversation is becoming more and more rare.  How do we teach them the importance of "listening" when we don't stop to listen to each other?

I guess the time has come to revise the old adage to: "Do as I do, not as I say."   I'm a true lover of words, so this is going to be hard for me; to rely on my actions to speak for me, to listen rather than to speak.  I think the next time Hannah interrupts a conversation I'm having with my husband or mother I will try hard not to get frustrated and tell her to wait her turn.  She should know how important she is to me and although I tell her all the time, at least once in a while she should get the floor and someone else will have to get asked to wait a minute.  After all a minute does feel like an eternity to a toddler.