Resilience

Resilience…resilience….I have been thinking a lot about the word this morning.

Yesterday I went to a FOCUS “counseling” session with Ben. FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress) is a program designed for military families and children facing the challenges of multiple deployment stress. It is an eight-week, instructional….well, for lack of a better term… intervention that addresses difficulties that families may have when facing the challenges of military life, particularly deployments. It was recommended to us by a friend and, while not fully convinced that we REALLY needed it, we made an appointment.

The session was interesting. We talked about our children and their reactions to this up and coming deployment. We talked about ways we have adapted our lifestyle to be in symmetry with military life. We talked about ways we have learned to cope with stress or emotional situations. Ben and I described our “emotional thermometer” over the last 8 years, specifically during times or events that impacted our family as a whole. We talked and talked…for 2 hours we talked.

When we were wrapping up the session one of our instructors said, “I am so impressed by how resilient you are…and how resilient your children seem to be.” It was intended as the highest of compliments, I think they were wondering if we REALLY needed their services as well, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since.

Resilience means to me:
Strong
Enduring
Adaptive

While all of these characteristics are desirable, even awesome, I can’t help but wish that my children could be described by more child-like terms like light-hearted, joyful and carefree. Can ‘resilient’ coexist with ‘carefree?’ Can ‘enduring’ coexist with ‘light-hearted?’

I want to find a way to teach my children that when the winds of trial blow their way they can not only bounce back, but bounce forward. But, I also want to teach them how to make spit balls and play MASH. I am in a thoughtful and slightly discouraged state. I suppose resilient children grow to be strong adults…that’s awesome…but is the emotional trudging through childhood worth it?

I am certain that my emotional thermometer is peaking near red today, the eve of Ben’s departure, and next week ‘resilient’ may not seem so bleak or cold, but today…today I don’t want to be resilient. Today I want to feel light-hearted and carefree. Today I want to skip across a sunshine washed field of daisies and then spend my evening wrapped in a blanket kissing my sweetheart under the stars.

Resilient? I suppose so…I mean, we don’t really have a choice. Joyful? Well, I think I might be able to pull off the “kissing under the stars” bit! I will have to get back to you!!