Spilling Milk

We went away this weekend to visit friends, a mostly retired couple who no longer have any kids at home but who raised kids of their own and who regularly have grandkids around the house.  Over the course of the weekend, I noticed how calm and patient they were. Even when my kids were fighting with each other and spilling things and doing all the other things that children do, interrupting the peace and quiet of a rural weekend existence.

I’ve noticed a similar calm in many of the older couples we know, and I think there is more to it than the obvious fact that they have to be patient only for a matter of days rather than for a matter of years, more to it than being able to turn children over to their parents if the situation escalates, more to it even than having all those years of experience.

The difference that I felt in our friends was that they had enough perspective to keep their focus firmly on the things that mattered and to let everything else go. Where I might be tempted to let the third milk mess of the morning become a frustration, the third was no different to them than the first, just a spill, not really that big a deal, to be expected from small children.

Intellectually I understand that just fine. I know that spilled milk is just spilled milk no matter how many times it gets spilled, worth neither crying nor frustration, but I’m a long way from recognizing this fact emotionally. Somewhere between spill one, which I help the child clean up in pretty good humour, and spill three, which I help the child clean up with decidedly ill humour, I forget that it’s just milk.

What I need to remember, with both intellect and emotion, is to focus on the things that matter and to let spilled milk go, no matter how many times it needs to be cleaned up.