A Letter to My Son on his First Days of School

Many of you know that I idolize Glennon Doyle Melton from  Momastery. One of my favorite posts of hers is titled The One Letter to Read Before Sending Your Child to School. After reading it and re-reading it, I decided to take her up on her offer to modify to share with my own child. Here it is. I wish someone read me this or told me this regularly when I was a kid. I'm thinking of wall papering his room with it. Subtle huh? Good luck with the back to school hustle everyone. Remember: we can do hard things. XOXOXO, R

 

Rowen,

This has been a big week – your first week of Kindergarten – WOW!! Seeing you trudge up the hill, line up with all of your classmates, hold the sign for Ms. O’Leary’s class & file in to your classroom fills me with so much pride and wonder at the awesome boy that you’ve become.

When I was in Kindergarten there was a boy named Anthony. He looked a little different and talked a little bit different. He never played with the other kids or talked in class. He got teased a lot. I would eat lunch with him and when I did the kids teased me too and that made me sad and not want to sit with Anthony or ask him to play. I still think about Anthony. I wonder if he remembers me. Probably not.

I think that people come into our lives as lessons to us and as gifts to us. The kids in your class this year – they are your lessons and your gifts. The fun ones, the mean ones, the shy ones and the crazy ones. So treat each one of them like a lesson and a gift. Every single one.  

If you see a child being left out, hurt or teased, your heart will hurt a little. Trust that heart-ache. Listen to that your entire life. That heart-ache is called compassion and it’s a signal for you to do something! It’s a voice that says – Rowen, wake up – someone is hurting! Do something to help!

Compassion might make you step in and do something right away like ask the teased kid to play or invite them to have lunch with you. This may be hard to do but you can do hard things. You might not be able to or want to step in right away and that’s ok too. Maybe you’ll tell your teacher or tell us – we’re all on your team – we’re on your whole class’ team. Asking for help for you or for others is always the right thing to do if someone is hurting. If someone is hurting, tell me and we will make a plan together.

Dad and I don’t care if anyone else thinks you're the  smartest or coolest or funniest ( we always will, regardless). There will be lots of contests at school and you won’t win them all and that’s ok! We don’t care if you get straight A’s, if the girls think you’re cute or whether you’re good at sports. We don’t care if you are your teachers’ favorite or not. We don’t care if you have the best clothes or flattest hair or an Xbox 360. We love you just the way you are and that’s that!

We don’t send you to school to become the best at anything at all. We already love you as much as we possibly could. You do not have to earn our love or pride and you can’t lose it. That’s done.

We send you to school to practice being brave and kind. Kind people are brave people. Because brave is not a feeling that you should wait for. It’s a decision. It’s a decision that compassion is more important than fitting in, than following the crowd. Trust me love, it’s much more important.

Don’t try to be THE best this year honey, try to be YOUR best and that’s a Rowen that is grateful and brave and kind. Take care of your classmates and of your teacher too. You belong to each other. You are one lucky boy to have all of these gifts and they’re lucky to have you too!

I love you more than I could ever express. Thank you for being the best gift I’ve ever received. Mamma

 

20 Years

20 years

2 decades

3 degrees

50 lbs

3 states

8 jobs

4 promotions

1 career

3 apartments

1 house

4 boyfriends

46 bad dates

1 true love

3 pregnancies

2 kids

200+miles ran 

2 half-marathons crushed

countless relationships that withered away and even more that have blossomed around me

 

And yet, this says nothing about who I am, what I've learned. What I've let go of and what still nags in my ear.

 

So much has happened since I graduated from high school 20 years ago. I was so impatient to leave - to get away and start my own life with my own rules, on my own terms. I left the town of-course,  not realizing the anxieties, insecurities and fears were already packed away, ready to travel with me to my next adventure right along alongside my dorm decor and crimping iron (?!?!?!)

 

If I could tell my 18 year old self one thing it would be this - you will be ok. you will not always be comfortable or happy but you will be ok. you are stronger than you know. stronger than you ever thought possible. you will know love and loss, the likes of which you never realized you had capacity to feel and that will add to your bad-assed strongness. not everyone will like you and that's ok so stop focusing on that. save that attention and energy for liking yourself. compare you to you and do it with compassion.

 

as i sit on a plane headed to my HS reunion, the tried and true worries try to sneak into my bag to travel with me - will everyone look better than me? will they have accomplished MORE great things? be more satisfied with life? will I fit in and have people to talk to? should I wear the expensive jeans or the cute dress to look my best yet effortless?

 

so unlike my 18 year old self I will hear these worries, marvel at the tenacity of them to persevere for so long, and let them go. I don't need them for this trip. i have my running shoes and my dancing shoes packed and frankly there's no more space. I have friends to see, a mom to chill  with and wonderful childhood friends waiting for my arrival. I have kids at home that I love so much that I have to leave them once in awhile so that my heart (or my head) doesn't explode. i have a husband that says go have fun and come home to us relaxed and ready to jump back in.

 

so here i go. 

bring on the Aqua Net! 

Goddess

Like many others that wear this amazing badge of ‘mother’, I’m a planer. A worrier,  a doer.  I multitask, organize and end the day with a million scenarios playing out in my head. Even the mundane tasks are not immune to my neurosis – every decision an opportunity for research, public opinion polling and hours of agonizing. My journals turn quickly from romantic prose to to-do lists and pro’s and con lists of whatever I’m debating at the time:

·         One kid /two?

·         CO/DC?

·         Disposable/Cloth?

·         Vegan/Flexitarian?

·         Public/Private?

·         Missionary or….Missionary?

So imagine my surprise when I found myself, hours after running my second half marathon with 15K other women on a postcard-perfect day in DC, propped up on a table in a tattoo parlor!

I hadn’t yelped them. I didn’t check for health code violations. I sat down and gave Dan my foot. Completely trusting this stranger with a goatee, a kind face and a needle.

“What do you think your family will say?” My friend asked in a conspiratorial whisper.  “I don’t know” I answered, “it’s not for them, it’s for me”.

And now I have wings reminding me that a Goddess lives here. One that knows that the answers will come when she stops asking the questions.

                           ~ Nike ~ the Goddess of Strength, Speed & Victory and She Resides with Me!

My child, my teacher: my messy beautiful

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

When I envisioned myself as a mother, I had images of myself as a wise-all-knowing and yet still extremely hip/fun and relatable modern woman. My kids would turn to me with curiously piqued, thoughtful questions bubbling up inside them and there I would be- armed with years of education, professional and personal life experiences at the ready. Parents are the first teachers, isn't that how the saying goes? Uh, if so, my family is royally screwed. Sure my kids ask questions nonstop (and always at bedtime) but they're never the questions you're prepared for:

• When will you die? 
• How will I die
• Does God see me all the time

You get the idea, the EASY stuff. In the past 5+ years of being a parent I've earned a masters degree in tap dancing or the DC approach of a non-answer: what do you think sweetie? Interesting question, let me think about that, or my favorite: ooooh look over here, something sparkly/on fire!! 

In reality, my kids have taught me so much more about myself: where my insecurities are, what my fears are, what I'm beating myself up about. My 5 year old son has suddenly gone from extrovert with charm and self esteem to spare to having major bouts of major self consciousness: WHY IS MY HAIR RED AND CLUMPY? I WANT MY HAIR TO BE FLAT AND WHITE. (SOBS). And the kicker: I DONT LIKE MYSELF. Damn. That hurt. Yes it hurt to see him sad but It also felt a lot like  MOM failure, to let my little guy be so vulnerable like that. 

This fear to be different, to stand out, to not be accepted by your pack and loved for just being you resonated with me. It actually hit me in the gut like a punch. How many times had these same thoughts gone through my own adult head? How much time did I waste, do I still waste, wishing   things were different? Wishing I were different?  Wasn't I just upstairs trying on a new bathing suit and unleashing a tirade against myself so bitter and damaging, it would stop a playground full of feral 5 year old boys in their tracks? How could I teach him to love himself just the way he was when I was still trying to learn this damn lesson myself?!

I obviously don't have the answers. But I know that when I hug him and tell him that everyone has days where they feel like this, it's the truth. I tell him his feelings are real and that I hear him, love him no matter what. We read Stinky Face who's mother loves him despite a host of perplexing conditions that beset the poor lad.

 I give him an extra dose of love and try to remember to save some extra patience, love and admiration for myself. If modeling the behavior we want to see in our kids is an effective tool, and I believe that it is, it looks like I have some of my own work that I need to do. 

Thanks for the lesson oh wise one, my adorable, hilarious red headed teacher.