Letters to My Daughter: Messy
Sep 12, 2022
Dear D,
This morning you woke early and came downstairs. I was sitting at the dining room table with my coffee (luckily not full!) and laptop tucked in amongst some partially finished coloring pages and an interrupted game of Genius Square.
We reached out, like we do every morning, to give each other a hug before heading to the kitchen for your gummies and water. And just as you were wrapping your arms around me, the back of your hand bumped my coffee mug.
For a fleeting moment I saw a look of bewilderment in your eyes, as I snapped into emergency mode, racing to grab paper towels so I could swab off my computer and assess the damage. I ran back and forth carrying soggy papers to the garbage and wiping down game pieces. While I wiped and dried and muttered under my breath, you stood quietly in the kitchen, too tired to jump in and help but just awake enough to be taken aback by my accusation that you had “knocked over my mug”.
Once I got the last of the Connect Four and Genius Square pieces wiped off and set aside a coffee-stained stack of Uno cards, the narrowing of my attention finally relaxed a bit and I was able to really see you. What I saw was a dulling of the relational space between us, a tentative bid for connection reaching out from behind a protective barrier.
The usual light in your eyes was there, but now peeking out behind a thin veil of wariness. In that moment, your face summed up for me the way fear and enjoyment and longing to belong so often dance around each other in our human journey.
Your amazing capacity for embracing the complexity of relationship is a gift, a space in which I find healing. I somehow internalized early on that accidents and misunderstandings and irritation and contrariness meant disconnection. You operate from the assumption that snotty tears and laughter go hand in hand, that mistakes and understanding are parts of the same whole. This surprises me over and over again, in the best way possible.
On my nightstand I have a treasured note from you. “Mama, I love you,” it reads, “evein if I bon’t lisin.” You wrote it in large print on a white sheet of paper using yellow highlighter, which somehow makes it even more precious to me. That was a couple of years ago, but in your eyes this morning as you wait intently for me to reconnect after flipping into “emergency” mode, I see the same alertness and assurance I saw in your face when you handed me that note.
Moment after moment, year after year, I see in you a willingness to embrace the messiness of life and love; to keep reaching out; to keep trying new things; to keep loving and taking risks.
A blessing:
May you know you are loved and you belong, even on days when you stub your toe before 8:00 in the morning and things just go downhill from there.
May you throw your arms with abandon around those you love, even if doing so sometimes causes spills or misunderstandings.
May you be surrounded by others who share your capacity for embracing the messiness of life and love, and trudge, skip, and walk resolutely together through this one wild and “brutiful” (shoutouts to Mary Oliver and Glennon Doyle!) life.
Read previous Letters to my Daughter:
