Janelle Evans

A good friend of mind recently told me that I never seemed to have a hair out of place.

“Have you ever had a bad hair day? It’s like perfection 24/7.”

I laughed so hard I snorted. “Um…don’t be deceived. I wake up to some pretty crazy hair every morning, so I don’t really have a choice. It’s either wear a hat with a really tight bun sticking out the back, or I have to wash my hair and start from scratch every day.”

She didn’t believe me so I took a picture the next morning and sent it to her. Yeah, it gave her a good laugh, but it also got me to thinking… How often do we measure ourselves against others?

Maybe they’re skinnier, maybe their face is done up to perfection, or their clothes always look so stylish. Basically you look at them and think, man that’s what it means to have your crap together. And yet, here I am, failing like always. But it isn’t true. Nobody has it all together all of the time. Everyone has start-from-scratch moments. Maybe yours aren’t daily, like my crazy hair requires, but everyone still has them. So hold your head up, and be a little kinder to yourself. And just in case you need proof and a laugh to feel better, here’s the picture I sent my friend. I guess I can officially say I have no shame.

For all the great things technology can do these days, I can say without a shadow of doubt it is ruining the rising generation’s interpersonal skills. As long their thumbs are doing the talking or they are speaking over a headset about the next plan to execute in a video game, they are fine. But you put them in a room together and they don’t know what to do. More often than not they don’t even bother to try. They just drop their eyes to their perspective phones and type or watch away. The real world is literally passing them by.

As someone who grew up before the internet was even a thing, it’s so frustrating to watch. I’m like a broken record, constantly reminding my children they need to work harder at building relationships with other teenagers–you know physically meet them. And there are days when I feel like I’m never going to get through to them. Won’t they be sorry if that’s the case–kissing your phone screen isn’t nearly as fun as somebody else’s lips. But if you can’t even carry on a conversation when somebody’s in the room with you, there’s a good chance those lips won’t be seeing any action–ever.

This week my sixteen-year-old daughter walked into my bathroom and caught my husband giving me a very long, sensual kiss. She acted way more shocked than grossed out.

“Whoa, I didn’t know you guys ever did that kind of thing?”

Besides making me laugh it also started a conversation about the importance of understanding your partner in a relationship. My husband is a quiet introvert. Interacting with people exhausts him, especially when they try to push into his personal space. Lucky for him he married an outgoing extrovert that doesn’t need constant touch to be assured that he loves her, so I don’t mind letting him be the one to initiate physical touch.

Public displays of affection wouldn’t bother me, but with my husband I know those are never going to happen. Because of this, to an outsider one might think we are never affectionate. Again, I don’t care how my relationship looks to others so this works for us. And like I told my daughter, “The sooner you figure out what you can or cannot live with in a relationship the better.”

And being the awesome mom that I am, I gave her a heads up. “By the way, you’re like your father so you’re not going to like a real clingy man.”

Groaning, my daughter pretended a shiver. “That I already know.”

Over a month ago my youngest son was slapped by another boy in the lunchroom of his junior high. While the incident upset my son he managed to keep enough control over his emotions to not retaliate in the heat of the moment. The other boy was suspended for his actions but told the principle that he had heard my son spewing some pretty ugly and racists things.

My son has never been to the principle’s office in his life so the phone call to me made the situation even more harrowing in his young mind. He denied saying anything offensive to anyone, and quite honestly I struggled to believe he did it too. Of all my children, he’s the one I’ve never heard swear and is always telling me I shouldn’t swear either.

By the next day the truth of the matter finally came out. The boy had lied when he said he heard my son saying offensive things. It had started with a female classmate who told her boyfriend she thought she heard my son say something who then turned around and told his group of friends, but embellished the supposed words even further. In that group of friends was the boy who slapped my son. The stupid game of telephone had definitely gone awry that day.

With the facts in place I simply told my son, “You only have one choice. You have to pretend like it never happened. It’s the only thing that will take the air out of the situation.” Even I wasn’t going to ever say anything, but the young man who slapped by son surprised me last week. He apologized.

I blinked in shock when my son told me. “So what did you say?”

I hadn’t prepped him on how to respond because I never thought it would be something my son would ever hear.

He shrugged and took another spoonful of his after-school-bowl-of-cereal. “I shook his hand and said ‘it’s okay, we’re good.'”

I spend a lot of time talking to my kids about the importance of being kind even when others are not. Yet, my son’s response to the whole thing surpassed what I hoped my children would be like when faced with adversity.

If I’m honest, I don’t know if I could be as magnanimous after being hit for no good reason. On the other hand, I appreciate the young man’s courage for having the humility to approach my son, admit he was wrong and ask for forgiveness. The level of maturity both boys showed changed my mind about never blogging about this incident. They are a good example of what we all should be like.

About five years ago our family went on a river rafting trip on the Green River. We entered below the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah, and for the most part the rapids were pretty mild. Which is a good thing since our youngest at the time wasn’t even eight.

While floating down the river and its many bends a sign appeared ahead.

“Stay to the right.”

After less than quarter mile we noticed another sign.

“Stay to the right.”

The rapids ahead looked far worse on the right than they did on the left, but my husband and I decided to follow the signs. We paddled into the rougher water. The boat behind us decided to stay on the smoother side. They had even smaller children with them so at the time I could understand their hesitation to follow what the signs told them to do.

Once we rounded a sharp bend the reason for the signs became clear. The rapids on the left increased exponentially, raging right into a large rock jutting out of the left side of the river. By staying to the right, my husband and I floated our family right past the danger with ease.

However the boat behind us, unable to row out of the raging rapids, slammed into that large rock. The rubber raft folded like a taco on impact, launching every person into the water. Thankfully, they all wore lifejackets. But we, and many other rafts, had a heck of a time fishing everyone out of the water, especially the small ones before the crashing rapids drowned them. That day those people lost everything they brought with him on their trip–well…everything except their lives.

We have warning signs all around us. They often come in the shape of older, wiser people telling what we should or should not do. Remember that the next time a parent tries to warn you about something or sets down a rule you don’t like. They’ve been down the part of the river you’re on right now, and they are just trying to help you avoid as many rocks as possible.