Friday evening I watched my girls participate in their first cross
country meet of the season. My youngest tied her last year best time and
my oldest daughter beat hers. Near the end of her race she was a few
paces behind a taller girl. She sped up, and beat her by half a step. On
her face was determined resolve. She finished strong. Her sister turned
in a better time, but her race was over before she crossed the finish
line. We're starting to see things take shape here at home. Each of the
girls have their own room, this morning the girls made rice so they
could take it in their lunches. We swept floors and put away imperfectly
folded laundry. As a parent, I haven't shown my children how to do
things. We tell them what needs to be done and expect them to do it.
Over the weekend I found out that a friend of mine had been raped as a
child.
Her husband brought it up and threw it in her face during a fight. She went to her room and cried for
hours as she relived the shame of her older step-brothers forcing
themselves on her. Life keeps going on around her. I found a book called
'Healing the Child Within' that I'm glad that I bought. My daughter has
some mild food allergies so we haven't had eggs at home for over a
week. It feels as if I have lost ten pounds, the scale tells me no
weight is missing. I own an impressive collection of yoga DVDs so this
weekend I tried a warm up. I am not flexible. This bothers me. I can't
do anything well and the few poses that I can do are uncomfortable
because my own body weight is working against me. I'm proud of myself
for not allowing the stack of shapely women to intimidate me all weekend
long. At the chiropractor the woman behind the desk shares her own
story, she too is intimidated, and I understand.
At the thrift store I found a Japanese print that I like. Water
tastes better when I add lemon, strawberry, and cilantro. The green,
red, and yellow is cheerful. Textures of the seeded berry contrast well
with the slender green stems and bumpy lemon end. I am too hard and too
easy on myself. The child within me needs to relearn how to be
authentic, open, and not try to present what it thinks others want to
see. Growth is slow. Last night my daughter gave me a sheet of printer
paper. A girl in her class won the race for her age group. Her time was
6:02. My daughter's time was 7:53. This girl gets better grades. My
daughter compares herself to this other girl and doesn't see how sweet
she is or how kind she is to others. The other girl is not very nice.
The sheet of paper my daughter gave me is on my desk. It says: "Everyone
needs some love. I love you." It'd hard not to cry so I don't even try
to fight it. There are second chances, it's not too late, for any of us.