It was early afternoon when I heard my wife Angela’s office door open. We’d both slept through our alarms, so we hadn’t spoken all day. Barked commands back and forth as we panicked to make up for lost time with the girls in the morning, yes. Spoken with each other, no.
Our offices are across from one another, so I quickly hopped up from my keyboard and over to my office door to say hi and give her a hug. She looked down and walked to the bathroom.
My chest locked and my stomach knotted.
Either she’s pissed at me or something really bad happened, or both.
A year ago I’d have followed her down the hall and made her reassure me five times that the sky wasn’t falling and that she wasn’t about to leave me. I’m thinking about the apocalypse while she’s thinking about a new route to get to the bathroom.
But this time, there was a beat before my mind started making up a story. I put a hand on my chest and talked to it:
Hi there, tightness. Silence used to mean anger. Thank you for protecting me then. We’re safe now.
The tightness eased and I went back to my work. A few moments later I heard the bathroom door open and Angela stopped in my doorway:
“Sorry, I REALLY had to go potty.”
Baby talk has spilled over into our adult lives, and I was grateful I hadn’t turned her full bladder into a full spiral. I named the slightly embarrassing practice of talking to my bodily sensations The Quiet Acknowledgment™ and started building the product line in my head.
The Quiet Acknowledgment Workbook.
The Quiet Acknowledgment Webinars.
The Quiet Acknowledgment Coaching.
Over the top, yes. But there was something to it. Later that week I was on a tense Zoom call about the Facebook algorithm changes that had gutted our business. I said something and Marcus’s mic picked up a snarky-chuckle sound he didn’t mean to make. His face showed up in the big “this is the person talking now” window and his expression said You’re a moron before he could hide it.
My gut went back into a ball. My hand went on my belly.
Wait. Marcus isn’t my high school religion teacher. It’s not 1999.
The ball shrank.
I looked into my webcam:
“I know I don’t have all the numbers, so that may have been dumb. Marcus, do you have the data on this?”
Then there were the bad mornings when it felt like someone placed an old dictionary on my chest and I couldn’t sit up.
Hello, heaviness. You learned that…
Learned what? From who?
Explaining my feelings to myself didn’t work when I felt that bad. I let both hands rest over my heart and said the only thing that fit:
You are safe. You are loved. You are supported.
Again.
You are safe. You are loved. You are supported.
It helped, I have no idea why, but that’s enough momentum to start spending money on.
I bought a forty-five-dollar leather journal on Amazon and started being official about tracking my Quiet Acknowledgment moments. Soon I had something new to write about.
It was 6:53 AM. Late meant disrespect. Disrespect meant disapproval. Fix it. Our middle daughter melting down about some missing purple marker that held the universe together while our youngest wailed that her eggs were “too yey-yo.” Nobody knew where our oldest was. Angela had whisper-yelled “I can’t do this today” and locked her office door behind her. I heard her desk drawer open and close three times.
Fifteen minutes to get everyone dressed, fed, and in the car. Then our middle daughter accidentally knocked over her orange juice.
“I need HELP!” I aimed it at Angela’s office door that stayed shut.
Our youngest flailed and knocked over her plate of too-yellow eggs.
This is where the fancy journal earns its place and I softly speak to my feelings of fundamental inadequacy. Nope. I yelled at them too:
Not NOW. I don’t have TIME for your feelings about spills and whatever childhood garbage this is triggering. I have an ACTUAL mess to clean up.
The Quiet Acknowledgment became The Loud Fuck-Off.
I grabbed the entire roll of paper towels and failed. The eggs and orange juice had mixed into something that would require a mop. I kept spreading the glop around for a good minute.
She watched me from her highchair.
“Daddy sad?”
Not “Daddy mad.” Not “Daddy scary.”
I stopped pouting with paper towels.
“Yes sweetie.”
“Okay Daddy.”
She went back to playing with what was left of her too-yellow eggs.
Later that day I regrouped and found that the chamois Angela’s dad used to wash cars took care of the floor. I hadn’t seen Angela leave her office since that morning so I texted her:
“Screamed at my inner child after screaming at the universe. Floor is clean.”
She sent back: ❤️
That evening, I was overcompensating and trying to get the juice off the dress. Angela appeared after being in back-to-back meetings since the morning meltdown.
“Dab. Don’t rub. Rubbing makes it worse.”
My hands turned into fists around the frilly fabric. Caught it.
Hey, it’s Angela.
My hands unclenched.
“Thank you. I’ll try that.”
The real test came when I was helping our middle daughter with a floor puzzle of the United States. The one where Nebraska looks like Wyoming and we can never find Delaware.
She was getting frustrated and declared “I CAN’T DO IT!” in a tone that took me back to my high school football practices. Coaches screaming about quitters and not acting like a girl. She saw something change in my face.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, no honey. I’m remembering being frustrated when I was little. See these?” I showed her the goosebumps rising on my forearms.
“I get bumps too,” she whispered.
We put down all the puzzle pieces, and I pulled her into my lap. Her warm weight brought me back.
“What should we tell our goosebumps?”
She thought for a moment.
“It’s okay.”
The puzzle stayed undone on the floor. Our goosebumps disappeared.
My Catholic education was a bit like my Spanish education: I stopped practicing and only a few phrases stuck. One of them, about becoming like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven, popped into my head.
Our youngest two call it “okay.”
I have no idea if it will get me into heaven, but it is helping.