The Myth of Ready

As a young girl scout in the mid-1980s, our motto was drilled into us:

“Be Prepared.”

That mindset has always been an ideal for me, and has – in my better moments – shaped me to always have a snack or extra tampon in my purse, a stick of deodorant in the car, a change of clothes for a kid, or a plastic bag in the glove compartment for a carsick traveler.

These aren’t always a given, but experience has taught me these things are important to try to have in place… we “live and learn” and move on, wiser and ideally, somehow more ready to tackle the next challenge.

Two nights ago, challenge hit our house HARD when I was the parent to discover nits and head lice in one of my kid’s hair.

CRUD.

Our family somehow managed to avoid head lice in the 13 years that we’ve had kids.

And somehow, despite getting scary email notifications from the schools regarding head lice alerts from time to time, we also somehow got comfortable with it never affecting us personally.

Until it did.

Rather than suffer in shameful silence (lol, me – be quiet?!), I went public, and posted about my distress, and asked for those who’d walked this path to help me with what to do next.

And I’ve been blessed with tons of good advice on products, techniques, and details from friends who have dealt with this, and they have assured me that there’s no shame, and that this can happen to everyone.

But last night, after smothering four heads in oil and plastic wrap… and wearing my bathing suit half the day as I showered four kids and washed with shampoo and lice-treatment shampoo… and then spent hours nit-picking the one head that clearly has issues… to still see plenty of nits I couldn’t grab with the special little comb…

… my tired brain found a creative way to blame myself for the issue.

“If only I’d been ready.”

I’d texted my husband throughout the day with requests like “Can you grab [gloves/a spray bottle/combs/etc]?”]

Maybe more laundry detergent too?

Shower caps? Tea tree oil?

Do we have more towels somewhere?

Can we get the beds re-made with clean linens before bedtime?

Should I be spraying mattresses with something?

Did I need to toss old pillows?

How do I clean nit combs?

Now that I’ve oiled their heads, how do I get oil out of hair?

I’d looked on amazon for every shampoo/comb/lice zapping gizmo mentioned to me when my efforts seemed to be failing… or at minimum, not being resolved quickly enough for my liking. And then I groaned at the thought of having to wait 3 days for it to arrive at my doorstep. I looked at inventory for local stores and found them lacking the specialized tools to best solve our head lice woes.

Why couldn’t I have just been READY for this?

If I’d bought these things earlier … over time … this wouldn’t be such a kick to the already-tender bank account.

If I’d bought some of these shampoos … zappers… and just had them sitting, pristine, in the hall closet, I wouldn’t have to run endless errands or order and wait while the lice, potentially… well, WIN.

I should have somehow been ready for this, right?

I just didn’t feel EQUIPPED to handle the breadth of this ridiculous undertaking, having to learn … and acquire… and figure out things… as I go.

But this morning, after a dead-to-the-world night’s sleep, I drank my coffee, and allowed myself to watch a chunk of “Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse” with my boys for the umpteenth time (and as an aside, damn, I *love* this movie).

And I could more clearly see that we’re never really READY.

When the shit hits the fan … or an unexpected and new-to-us thing shakes our world… we get overwhelmed. We have to take in information, learn, try, fail, try again, and basically, just get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

And in the moment, we are rarely truly ready to jump into that kind of action.

What does Peter B. Parker tell a bumbling, unsure Miles Morales, as the other Spideys move on to handle the showdown against Kingpin?

“It’s a leap of faith. That’s all it is, Miles. A leap of faith.”

What if “being ready” is less about having every magical tool and shampoo and gadget and skill locked and loaded and ready to go in your bathroom closet …

…. and more about the mindset of being ready to learn and do what you have to do?

Less about knowing how to do absolutely everything right the first time…

… and more about being ready to try and fail and figure things out, bit by bit?

(Or in our case, nit by nit.)

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist. My amazing sense of humor remains in tact.)

Anyway, all of this household adventure leaves me with a somewhat limited bandwidth for all the words and the insight and the writings, but I will leave you with that idea that gives me comfort in the midst of life’s messiness:

“Be ready” isn’t the complete sentence.

It’s more like, “Be ready … to learn.”

I’ve got laundry and vacuuming to do!