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This morning Ella ran into our room, started pulling on my leg, and began asking with utter weariness "why is it taking sooooo long for my light to turn green???!!!". As I always do, I looked at the clock on my nightstand, and was relieved to see that it was 5:30. "You only have thirty more minutes Ella, back to your room". With a dramatic sigh, she stomped back to her bedroom, and swiped a slice a bread for good measure on the way.
In the past, I would have spent the next thirty minutes wracking my brain trying, for the life of me, to make sense of her sleep patterns, her behaviors, just "her" in general. My panic button would have been flashing, my anxiety peaking, my brain fast forwarding ten years, catastrophizing everything, because I cannot always understand my little bird. But today, I finally just thought to myself "it's who she is, go back to sleep". And I almost did, but then I couldn't, because I was just so darn excited about how much freedom there was in "letting it go". In "letting her go".
Now, I know that most of you have embraced this, but it was a long time coming for me, and furthermore, a daily struggle that continues. It's daily work, to not mico-manage, to not want to control. There is this lurking fear that if I don't enforce a rule, maintain a routine, remind her of manners, and teach her about values, she might go down the wrong path, appear rude or strange, start behaving terribly to the point of no return, and refuse to eat anything but pancakes for the rest of her life.
Obviously, as parents it's important to be consistent, to teach basic manners and values. But the other stuff, the attempts to tweak the parts of her that overwhelm me, so that she makes more sense to me, well that's just my own baggage that I'm plopping onto her tiny and beautiful wings. How in the world could any bird fly while carrying suitcases full of old insecurities, wounds and fears? Their own precious wings would never even have a chance of opening.
I remember being younger, and listening to women talk about how they "were over" caring about what people thought. I observed how they carried themselves, how they just were so natural, and simply able to enjoy themselves in the moment. It made zero sense to me, because these women were not perfect, by my twenty year old definition, so how in the world could they sit back and just enjoy life? How did they not worry about the way their bodies looked when they sat in a room, or if their make up was too much or too little? Why didn't they seem to care one iota about what they said, or how they said it? Why were some of them just quiet, but not uncomfortable in their quietness? It was impossible for me to put my finger on it, but I now know, it was simply confidence.
It took me thirty-two years, but I finally feel I'm just entering this extraordinary stage of life. For once I can sit back, be in a moment, and truly not give a snail's tail what anyone thinks. I've embraced my body through thick and thin, and have finally come to realize that my body is not who I am, it simply holds who I am. I've embraced that I need more down time than the average hibernating bear, and I'm finally not ashamed to ask for it. Parties full of strangers can freak me out, but that doesn't make me a freak. The phone is my enemy, and maybe that seems weird, so be it. I am not flawed, I'm Liz.
To reach this place is to finally breath fully. Not just half breaths that only partially sustain, but really big full breaths that energize and rejuvenate me. Because I can finally rest in who I am, and know how much joy that brings to my soul, I just want to do everything in my power to provide the same for my kids. It's only natural that they will have self doubt, that they will question who they are, but it will not be because I am trying to change them, or because I am sending the message that they are flawed by subtly trying to adjust who they are.
My job as a parent is to raise ELLA and CORA, not RAISE ella and cora. They are who they are going to be for the rest of their lives right now, and nothing I say or do is going to change that. The best thing I can do, is provide them with coping strategies to gently work through their precious soft spots, and help them make the most of their unique gifts.
Also, I tried to tweak this little birdie the other day, and found that it was useless. She was embracing her inner "Ella" - which translates to a firm refusal to brush or style her hair, combined with an ambivalence towards matching and/or wearing seasonally appropriate attire for thirty degree weather. We argued, I cringed, and I let it go....
My Proud Peacock
Moments like this, I try to remember the following:
"Do not ask that your kids live up to your expectations. Let your kids be who they are, and your expectations will be in breathless pursuit" - Robert Brault
I hope that you and I alike are able to let our babies fly freely, without the weight of our past, without the weight of our expectations, so that they may be more stunning and more unique than anything we could have ever imagined. For my thirty second year of life, I'm going to try to make this my "Momtra", and I hope you do too :-)
