I knew I had made it as a mountain mother the day all five of my children could carry their gear to the slope. At the end of each ski day they would be hot and want to take off their helmets and gloves. We always got home with five helmets but getting home with ten gloves was another story. Helmets make a distinct sound when they hit the ground, whereas gloves are silent. Their silence results in many a glove being lost. If we could’ve lost the left glove one week and the right glove the next week it would have still been OK because we could have matched pairs together. We never did. It was always the same hand that was lost. Eventually, I came up with a plan. When the kids took their gloves off they clipped them into the chinstrap of their helmet. That way if a glove dropped it was clipped on and we made it home with all ten gloves!
One spring skiing day my youngest informed me that he didn’t want to clip his gloves on. He wanted to carry them in his helmet “like an Easter Basket.” I fell into a parent trap thinking, “I’m too tired to fight him.” Fighting with him to clip them would have been less energy!
I let him carry his gloves instead of clipping them. I looked in his helmet when we left the locker area to make sure they were still there. I looked again when we got on the escalator. I looked again when we got off the escalator. I looked when we got to the bus stop. But when we got home we were missing one glove.
In all honesty this glove was not expensive. In fact, it was a mitten. A mitten that I had bought at Costco. The pair cost $15. When items are available at Costco at the beginning of the season they are there until they run out. It was well past run out time and these were the perfect mittens for little kids. They zipped up one side so I could lay a tiny hand flat in the mitten and then zip it.. I was not about to lose it! Why I didn’t buy two pair when they were available I will never know.
So my goal or desire was to get the missing mitten. I assumed that it must have dropped out in the parking lot when he laid his gear down to load in the minivan. No problem, I thought. I will drive back to the parking lot and pick up the mitten.
When I got back to the parking lot, there was a problem. The gate or entrance to the parking lot was closed. I was being pretty judgmental and thought that some young employees had wanted to go to a party so they had come and locked the gate hours earlier than they were supposed to.
I was determined and so I noticed there were still three cars inside of the parking lot. I would wait for them to exit and then I would enter through the out-gate, while the arm was up from the exiting vehicles. I attempted this but it never worked. I think the revving of my engine may have scared the exiting vehicles. So when that was a no go I drove around looking on the sidewalk we would’ve used. I even bumped the front of the in-gate with the nose of my minivan. I did not want to walk through the parking lot because, although I walked at this time, there was probably a good 4 inches of ice and I was wearing Dansko shoes which don’t necessarily provide stability for an icy journey. I seriously tried every way I could think of to get into that parking lot. Once again my desire was to get the glove. However, my method was driving to where I thought the gloves would be.
I have since learned that often we get discouraged when we think our desires are outside of our reach. That’s not necessarily true. It’s just the method we are using to reach the desire that needs to be changed. In this instance my desire was to get the mitten and my method was to drive to where I thought it was.
Finally, I had no other choice but to get out of the van. I walked around the front, I walked around the gate and started walking on the icy parking lot. When I got around the gate there sitting on a post, hid from my view while sitting in the van, was the mitten! My desire was accomplished and all of the roadblocks I faced were not actually blocking my desire but were redirecting my method. Had I been able to drive into where I thought the mitten was I would have never found it. That would have been the wrong method.
Now, when I get discouraged I try to ask myself if my desire is out of reach or if my method is just being changed. Most likely it’s the method that needs changed. Honestly, I’m really not even that attached to the method it’s just what I thought I needed to do.
When you’re feeling like your desire is being blocked change your method.
