"I need this experience to be different"

“I need this experience to be different.” My voice cracked a little when the words came out of my mouth. Almost laughing at myself, I was too worked up to stop mid sentence, but I felt embarrassed at the hilarity of the statement. 

We were leaving an event I had taken the family to and my daughter and I were mid argument. It was something silly. Our paths got crossed. Communication was poor and that led to hurt feelings all the way around. I felt, in the moment, especially shit-on since I had planned this day for her and now I was getting dragged through the coals for something minor. In an effort to express my feelings, rather than keep yelling, I dug deep and the best thing I could come up with was “I need this experience to be different” - Amazing. A real enlightened being here…..

As that statement rolled off my tongue there was this weird juxtaposition of realization of just how steeped in illusion, and yet how real it felt. There was a strong part of me that felt assaulted, put upon, wronged. That part of me certainly wanted that experience to be different. And yet there was another part of me that wanted the part of me that wanted it to be different to shut the hell up and be more enlightened. 

I was at odds with myself. Half disillusioned towards myself, half disillusioned towards her. In the end I was too angry to fight his battle internally. So instead, I just sat there quietly. Churning in my own boiling pot of confusion. 

Did I really need that experience to be different? No. Attached to the emotions of the moment, I had created an expectation that the day would end a certain way - and it didn’t. That left me angry because I expected some grand reward and appreciation for my actions. I wanted to get paid for all the hard work I put in. And instead, I got  what I perceived as entitlement and a lack of appreciation. That brought stress, frustration, and anger. It reminded me of other times I had let someone down in my life, that feeling of shame, failure. And it left me acting out against my daughter and trying to hold myself above water. 

What would it look like if instead of needing the experience to be different, She needed me to be different. What if she needed me to listen? What if she needed me to put her needs before mine? What if I needed this moment to be exactly like it was, so that I could have the opportunity to step up,  listen, and meet her where she was? 

Stories are a funny thing. We can get so caught up in them that we forget the reality that this moment can be no different than it currently is. And once we accept the reality of now, it becomes a little easier to redirect ourselves. By dropping our expectations on this moment, we reset the direction we are moving in the world, more easily ebbing and flowing with the direction the moment is pointing us. 

In this experience, my daughter needed me to hear her. And instead, all I could hear was my own desire that she stop complaining and appreciate me. The more we can become aware of these moments, these internal stories, the more we can stop, repair, and open to opportunities  for genuine connection. 

After boiling internally for a while. I spoke up. I apologized. I explained my misplaced needs. She explained hers. And we moved on. Both a little more in touch with the stories we create in our minds. A perfect ending, maybe the illusion was just what we both needed.