Better, Now Do it Again

Who are you? Who do you want to be?

This week I went to dinner with my parents and oldest brother. Growing up, it was regular—repetitive, even—to eat dinner with these particular people (and more). I did it all the time. It was as plentiful as air, so ubiquitous that I ceased to even notice it at all.

For the majority of my life, I’ve been involved in rehearsals. The origin of the word “rehearse” first appeared in the Middle Ages as the English word rehersen, meaning "to say again, repeat.” When I run a rehearsal, we drill things. “Better,” I often say, “Now, do it again.” They do it again, a little improved, and then we do it again. We do this until I have to let them go. The general rule is that for every five minutes of live performance you see, there is an hour of rehearsal—repetition—that you don’t see.

We grow up in a group of people that we are with for the majority of our time. We repeat many things together. Meals, clean up, holidays, play, the business of going to bed and waking, the ritual of leaving and returning, birthdays, slow Saturdays, Mondays that come too soon, traffic, vacations, travel, fighting and making up, to name some. Not one of these things is a one-off. All of them, we do repetitively. All of them, we get to rehearse, so to speak, together.

At dinner with some of my family this past week, the conversation flowed easily. I looked around at these familiar faces—some of the first ones I ever memorized. I noticed that time and busyness—none of us are kids now with wide open schedules—has made this once ordinary thing extraordinary.

Not everyone in my family sees the world the same (I know this is a shocking statement; I know none of you, dear readers, experience such familial diversity as this!). While going through a divorce in my twenties, one of my siblings got extremely angry with me and said things about me that I’m sure he hasn’t felt is true for a long time. I sat on the ground outside after he left, devastated. I remember specifically wanting to lay down in the dirt, because that felt honest. So I did. I was as low as the earth, my heart and body matching.

I went to my therapist at the time and explained how my brother was angry with me. She calmly listened. I told her this had never happened, not like this; he always used to approve of me—we always saw life exactly the same! His sudden disapproval felt unmooring.

My therapist smiled.

“This is good for you, Jessica,” she said.

“This is terrible,” I reminded her.

“It feels terrible, sure,” she amended, “But you are self-actualizing. You are differentiating from your family—something that all grown-ups must do. Who are you? Who do you want to be? Can you be you even if it makes someone you love angry?”

“I don’t want to make my family angry,” I told her. (On my resume, listed under Special Skills, it clearly states: Expert at avoiding making family members angry.)

“You will see,” she encouraged me. “Differentiating from your family—even a good family who loves you—will feel like your life is being destroyed. But you will get to build a better one. One that doesn’t rely on people’s approval. You will experience greater freedom and I’m excited for you. You are exactly where you need to be. This is the cost maturity demands of you.”

I guess you could say I first started practicing the integrity of aligning my values and beliefs with my words and actions—even at the cost of making others upset—within my family. They were my first scene partners for this narrative. This week, at dinner, we gingerly touched on our diverse opinions. There was a little tension, but it did not feel devastating. In fact, I had no adrenaline in my body, no questions as to my own worth as a person, a daughter, a sister, a friend. “We can love each other and disagree on this,” I said and meant it. I learned this in my family. Believe me, we’ve had endless hours of rehearsal for this.

Today is December 1st. We have entered into the holiday season. Chances are, we will be rehearsing life with family, friends, co-workers, people who, for better or for worse, we do life with. What if we think about our interactions with each other—a big feast, a holiday show, another Monday morning meeting, etc—as more rehearsals in which we get to practice being the person we desire to be? What if, knowing just how much practice is required before even beginning the long, arduous work of change that will eventually lead to mastering anything at all—from riding a bike, to performing a song, to creating a new pathway in our brain—we view the holidays and all of its get together-ing it requires as more rehearsal?

Last week, when I had to brush through and braid one of my daughters’ plentiful hair, we both lost it. She was screaming and thrashing—making the whole process even longer and more painful—and I raised my voice and felt a rush of hot anger in my body. It was awful. I asked her forgiveness afterward because I missed the mark on self-control and patience. Tonight, I got to rehearse this same scene again. She didn’t change really. However, I did better! I didn’t feel the same helplessness against my impatience and hot anger. I controlled my spirit to the point that I didn’t have to ask her forgiveness afterward.

(“Better,” God says to me, “Now, do it again.”)

My friend Nina brilliantly says that the holidays are always a rorschach test. Each of us view them as projections of whatever we’re already feeling inside. Another friend calls the holidays a microscope on how you’re already doing on the inside. I’ve learned this is painfully—and delightfully!—true, and I gain much peace from the story of the Messiah’s birth. In my daily rhythms and the people I interact with, I find a resounding echo of the angels’ song—the promised “hope and goodwill to all mankind.”

And I get tired, I get upset, I wonder why people act the way they do. I feel like I could be much holier if only people weren’t so annoying and my daughters didn’t scream and we weren’t constantly late and my throat didn’t get scratchy the weekend I have five gigs to sing and my husband learned to read my mind better. In her poignant book, Prayer in the Night, Tish Harrison Warren wryly writes about her faith being only as good as a back that doesn’t hurt and seems to go right out the window the moment it does. But it is for these (and harder, much harder) circumstances I am practicing.

Let me practice being patient even though I’m very hungry and I have seven things to do and five minutes to do it and I put you to bed an hour ago: What is it that you need, Charlee? To sing me a song about Jo-Jo the Cat? But you already sang that song, darling. Oh, you wrote a new one? Okay, let’s hear it, but then mama really needs to get back to work. Or, since I really need to buckle down, I might say, Actually, I put you to bed for a reason and you need to go back to bed and sing me this new Jo-Jo the Cat song in the morning, I cannot wait to hear it.

(“Better,” God says to me, “Now, do it again.”)

Who are you? Who do you want to be? We can close the gap between the answers to these questions with practice (and some divine help, hope, and goodwill to all mankind). Thankfully, we all have plenty of opportunity for practice this December.

Sending love to you and yours this season, and rehearsing with all my heart right alongside you.