*just write*
For as long as I can remember, I have craved the quiet.
My closest friends, in every season of my life have been lively, people loving, cheerful, outgoing types. I am drawn to these kind of people. They somehow hold the magic key to unlocking my frozen and scared places.
My husband is the exception. I met him, and thought it might be kind of quiet in our house, but I knew I had met someone who got me. but that's another blog.
So, except for those sacred few who have the magic key, I have been content to kind of walk many of my paths with a few amazing people by my side. When you take those personality tests- "goes to party and has one or two meaningful conversations" versus, "works the room". I am the former.
But those tests always frustrate me, because I was also what some might call a "ham" in my younger years. I suppose I enjoyed the attention that was showered on me. I danced. I sang. There is video to prove it- but somewhere along the way, something shifted. That space in time hen the self awareness over shadows the real you- or maybe that's the real you? How do you really know?
At any rate, I am sure this is the point where parents start scratching their heads and wondering who it is in front of them. This changing little life. what a mystery?
I have some vague memories of my parents wanting to throw me a birthday party around the adolescent years. I was resistant, I am pretty sure it didn't happen, and I am assuming I frustrated the hell out of them. I think what they didn't know, and I what I couldn't quite articulate at the time, was that the whole idea of a party for me felt uncomfortable. It didn't feel fun anymore.(I have the added pressure of a New Years Eve Birthday). Bottom line, something had shifted. I had become the person who wanted to eat cookie dough with my best friends on my birthday, the person who didn't want a party in my honor, with lots of people looking at me.
I am still like that. Small, low key. keep it simple.
But now, here I am with this little girl who is about to turn 4. My little social Annie who never meets someone she doesn't love. And I am having a small, quaint get together, with family and her closest friend Brydia. And I am filled with anxiety!
Am I giving her MY PARTY? There goes God again stretching me, pushing me beyond my comfort zone, using my child to form my character.
And this is my prayer, that I will listen, that I will try to know her, no matter how frustrating it gets, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.
May I learn these things, knowing I am who I am, the way God made me.
And she is who she is, the way God made her.
It is a gift to love another person.
a hard, exhausting, beautiful gift.
I will mess this up.
I am already messing this up.
One day, Annie will probably tell me all the ways I got it wrong, but I hope she'll be able to see the things I got right, too.
Just like my parents, and every human being who has ever tried to love another person.
It's hard. Sometimes you knock it out of the park, but sometimes, sometimes, it's just plain hard.
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