Looking For Calm

My son asked me not to post pictures and a gooey message on FB today. I told him I would honor that request even though I was excited to post a picture of him from years ago and a current one of him as a (gasp) 10^th grader. I hoped to do this to serve as a testament to what a wonderful boy he was and to the young man he is becoming. I am nostalgic today, on this his 16^th birthday, because I love him more fiercely now than the day he arrived. I can recall so many moments where I wanted to protect him. Sometimes I did this successfully and other times not. Sometimes I opened my mouth and let things spill out that were not helpful and definitely did not change the inherent situation. Because how can we sit by and watch the child whom we love unequivocally be in pain or deal with struggle?

I remember being just out of arms reach and watching him fall.  He landed with a thud on the cement parking block, and I watched in horror as the lump on his forehead grew into a healthy size purple egg. He was just over a year and a half and delighted in walking on his own and delighted even more in being just beyond my reach. As a relatively new parent of a walking toddler, I can remember having to resist trying to prevent the falls before they happened, It was an effort to try and not jump in too quickly when he found himself on the ground again and again. I could hold him, comfort him and tell him he was safe, but there were going to be bumps and bruises along the way.  I can recall walking out onto the playground of his school with a prospective family, when our son’s first grade class was at recess.  I watched him circle the periphery of the playground alone. Recess was never comfortable. He did not relish it the way so many other children di because it was work and anxiety producing and involved social interactions. The social world has been and remains a challenging one for our son to navigate. I trust that with each new experience, “islands of confidence” once described to me by a friend who is a child psychologist, our son will continue to walk into the wilderness. I love this expression that Brene Brown writes about in her latest book, Braving the Wilderness.

“We have to resist following them into the wilderness and trying to make it safer and more civilized. Every cell in our body will want to protect them from the hurt that comes from standing alone. But denying our children the opportunity to gain wisdom directly from the trees and dance in the moonlight with other high, lonesome renegades and limping outlaws is about our own fear and comfort. Their heart needs to know the wild too.”

 Can you remember standing alone as a young person? I quite often felt alone as I navigated the complex world of adolescence and young adulthood. And I do not know about you, but I would not return to that period of time in my life for anything. I believe with my whole heart that it was through the experiences, when life was challenging and relationships were sometimes tumultuous, that I learned more about who I was as a person and who I hoped to become. (Full disclosure this is a path on which I am still journeying) I became more resilient because of adversity not in spite of it. I wanted to share the following excerpt with my dear, sweet, kind son, on this day and in the days to come to serve as a reminder of how loved he is.

 “Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No One belongs here more than you.”   (Brene Brown)