2 + 2 = Yellow

It was night and I stood in the small living room of our duplex apartment crying, frustrated, and confused. I must have been 8 years old at the time.I was crying because I couldn’t make 2 + 2 = yellow. I was exhausted and talking with my mom as she sat calmly on the couch about why my math wasn’t mathing. She listened, paid attention to me with her bright blue eyes, and told me it was going to be okay and that we could figure out the math in the morning. I remember her smile and the dimples, she knew how to calm me down. While I wanted to figure it out now, I knew that I had tried everything I could think of. She walked over to me, knelt down, gave me a big warm hug, and then held my hand as we walked back to my room. Tucked in, I soon fell asleep. I was told that after that adventure in trying to math the color yellow, I slept for 14 hours. It wasn’t my first marathon sleep and wasn’t my last. My confusion was because I was awake in an alternative reality that was the byproduct of a childhood epileptic episode. This experience was tame because it didn’t include the uncontrollable shaking from grand mal seizures yet, but it was a window into how my brain and mind danced together. My mind would watch my brain exhaustively try to compute logic within me while my body fueled these internal adventures and battles. These alternative realities gave me windows into both terrifying and enlightening experiences, showed me patterns other people couldn’t see, and warned me of impending danger. I have my own “Spidey Sense” that allows me to embody unseen, unfelt, and potentially unrealistic perspectives. I am not fractured or broken, I am a beautifully cut prism. 

I care for others like my mom cared for me – as unconditionally as I can. I don’t have to understand everything in the moment, but I can be present, hold space, and help others move forward. I am not here to fix and problem solve (unless you ask). I offer my being to sit with your being. Oftentimes I think I am crazy to care like this and say things like, “I am too much and expect too much from others”. It is exhausting to pour into others that cannot or don’t know how to care in return. Too much care has a price tag or impossible measures of success. Care is also pushed off into a future that never comes. Sometimes I want to give up and just be a cat + plant daddy…and then I am then reminded that amazingly caring people DO exist!! The times I was deeply cared for by my mom when my world was inside out. By my grandfather and grandmother as a child. As an young man and up to today, close friends, other family members, and complete strangers have slowed down enough to offer their being to sit with my being. This type of care is real and it’s an immeasurably important offering in the world.

I care because it didn’t matter if I couldn’t figure out how to equate 2 + 2 = yellow. I care because my mom offered her being to sit with my being. I wasn’t judged, scolded, and told to calm down. She showed me that “being with in the moment” is the foundation to love and care.