Can You Still Love Someone Whose TV Is Always On?

Finding a connection point

Photo by Amber Faust on Unsplash

I almost lost my arm when I was ten years old.

I fell out of a tree fort. You know what I was doing? Rocking on the back 2 legs of a chair. As in, “Don’t rock in that chair or you’ll fall!” Well, I fell. Ten feet down.

I don’t remember it hurting. I was in shock. It was a bad break. After the first surgery, my arm turned death gray. My mom sounded the alarms, and the next thing I remember was an ambulance ride to Duke University Hospital.

Seven surgeries later, they saved my arm. I was a case study for medical residents. My mom was on that team that helped define the trajectory of my life. She poured her entire being into mothering.

This was the era of stay-at-home moms. She cooked what she knew to be health. Pork chops, green beans cooked in fat until gray, and pear salad with a heap of mayonnaise and shredded cheddar on top.

Her closest friends through all our moves, and through the sadness of marital issues, were cheap white wine and Valium. Later it became recovery meetings, then antidepressants and opioids.

I know she’s done her best to love. I’ve grown through a lot of the scars that come with being raised by an alcoholic parent. She was never mean. Always sweet. Southern nice. And she’s deeply perceptive. Psychic.

I’m not angry with The Mother Wound anymore. But I do still feel disappointment that she never became the woman she might have been. Empowered. Creative. Bold.

That’s not what hurts now. What really challenges me is that she lives on the far side of the political fence. The TV is always on. News always running. Her life companion. I’ve tried to set a boundary: “No politics talk, please.” But she can’t seem to hold it.

So I find myself hesitating to bring the kids around.

There’s a popular self-love message out there about cutting off toxic relationships. I’ve wrestled with that one. Do we really have to cut people off? What about learning tolerance? What about practicing love and seeing past differences to the shared heart underneath it all?

With friends, I’ve been able to do that. Give space when things get tense, then reconnect once the storm has passed. Rediscover the common ground.

But with parents, it’s trickier. They seem to need connection on every topic. Food choices, politics, gossip. It just reignites tension.

If we could just let it rest. Talk about gardening, the grandkids’ adventures, the simple joys. We might have the chance to meet in a shared space.

That’s what I’m holding out for. The neutral ground.

And if the neutral ground never happens, give me the grace to navigate otherwise.

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I woke up feeling heavy the day after the above triggered a spiral.

I brewed my beans and did the stupid thing. Checked in on Substack. And felt the sting of comparison. The whisper: I have no value.

Is that true? Of course not. (Thank you, Byron Katie, for the reminder to question the story) It’s not true that I have no value. But the weight of the lie can sit heavy some days.

So I breathed into it. Let it be there. “There is heaviness here.” No story, no judgment. Just a fact. Like the fall leaves changing color.

As I released the judgment about the judgment, something softened. The weight began to lift.

Driving the kids to school, their bickering felt less like fingernails on a chalkboard and more like the melody of morning. I was able to connect beyond the words flying to the beauties I get to share my life with these days.

The heaviness became fuel. A power surge. My morning coffee. A reminder to return to awareness.

It took about forty-five minutes (well, and a night of dreams working their processing magic). That’s pretty good. My record thirty years ago was closer to two months. If at all. Back then, I’d just shove it down and numb it out.

But now I care too much about being awake. About joy. About uncovering, shedding, rewiring, aligning.

Because I want to love living.

And I know that if I do the work of meeting my own smallness, I’m doing the work the world needs. The work that heals generations. The work that transforms our current planetary woes and leadership egos.

My parents would have been Hitler followers. They follow what feels safe. They don’t question. Questioning is scary. It’s uncomfortable at best. But usually feels more like the sky is falling.

I’m pretty sure I blessed myself before coming into this incarnation with an undeniable quest to question. It’s caused a lot of grief in my life. And it has kept me strong-footed on a path I love.

I don’t love life all the time. The scenes that play out. The hurts and fears I get caught up in for too long before I remember to stop identifying with them.

But I love the growth path. I always have. It’s the golden thread that weaves through my life. I can trace it all the way back to the beginning and see where I once was. I can see the walls I’ve torn down. The boundaries I’ve upheld. The heart I’ve opened up. The connection I’ve fostered.

That thread is what keeps me walking toward the neutral ground. Toward love that includes it all.

I was questioning my Substack name recently, Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened. Wondering if it came from a place of grasping. Of feeling not good enough yet.

But I don’t think so. I think it points to this exact edge. The dance between pain and peace. Between judgment and grace. Between being human and remembering we are divine.

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Wishing you the grace to love what feels unlovable, and the courage to keep dancing on the edge.
💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer · Connie