(Note, this one is specifically directed at girls so boys may not relate to everything I have to say but go ahead and read it anyway. )
Isn't it strange, how wise children are? They know things about life and art that adults spend decades trying to capture. They live with the reckless abandonment of needing to experience very moment of life. It is a magical-er way to live than what I am doing. Now, I am not saying that we should go back to living the way that children live. As wise as children can be they are also great fools. I gave up childish things when I became an adult and that is supposed to be. Still, there are some things that I knew as a child, forgot in my teens, and had to learn again as an adult.
1) Dressing to please yourself is better than dressing for anyone else.
You remember being little and your mom would put you in an itchy, uncomfortable, dress for church with a tight collar? Then tell you how cute you looked or that you needed to wear it because your grandma gave it to you. You remember that? It was the worst. And you went home and tore off the uncomfortable clothing as soon as you were allowed to put on the shorts and t-shirt that your mom insisted she would bury some day.
Then you reach a point where what you look like and how other people see you suddenly matters. Girls start wearing high heeled shoes to school and making fun of you in the locker room for the cut of your underwear and you start thinking that you have to dress a certain way to go out in public, whether you are comfortable or not.
I didn't realize quite how much this effected me until recently.
Every couple of years I throw out all of my underwear and buy all new stuff, and you should too. It makes life better. One morning I put on one of the new pairs and realized I had purchased a larger cut than usual. The sort that my high school and middle school peers would call "granny panties." 'Oh no, I'm going to look dumb,' was the thought that immediately went through my mind. Followed by a different kind of self-criticism. 'I'm going to look dumb? It's underwear, who is going to see it?' I don't spend a lot of time in locker rooms anymore so that concern of the mean girl on my volleyball team teasing me isn't exactly valid anymore. Even if it was, would 30 year old me really care the same way that 13 year old me cared? In fact, the only person seeing what's beneath my clothes is me and I am comfortable. There are a lot of other things that I can say here about who should be seeing under your clothes and you shouldn't who don't genuinely care about you and your comfort but that is another essay in itself. Instead I will say that you should care first about what you like and makes you comfortable because someone who is actively trying to see what is beneath your clothing doesn't get the right to criticize what he sees there.
And the importance of being comfortable and wearing what you like is true of everything you wear and do.
I never dress for other people anymore, at least I don't dress for them first and then try to accommodate myself. Which means that I often do things like wear harem pants because I like them and skinny jeans may be in style but are actually the worst. I'm not saying that you should wear sweatpants to work every day. I am saying that as a kid I knew that it was better to feel good in clothing that was comfortable or that I liked than to wear clothing that pleased someone else and it took me a long time to relearn that as an adult.
2) Mom and Dad are the best people in your life.
I am sorry that this may not be everyone's experience. I am sorry that we live in a broken world filled up with broken people.
For me, I have always known two things with absolute certainty. My parents love me and God Loves me. That is it. Those are the only certainties in this world.
When you are little Mom and Dad are the best people in the whole world. Just yesterday my friend handed me her 8 month old son and walked away. He turned and watched her walk down the hall and through the kitchen door then burst out crying and flailing wanting to get to her. He knew, Mom is the best person in the world. Mom is the person I want to be with. I don't care what Mom is doing, I want to be with her. We get a little older and forget that. Suddenly Mom and Dad become embarrassing.We ask them to drop us off around the corner so our friends don't see them. We certainly do not want to talk to Mom and Dad about fashion or boys. Parents just don't understand!
We are wrong. Mom and Dad are the best people in our lives. We should be showing them off to our friends saying "hey, these are my people! They made me into the person I am."
Guess what else, our parents know a lot. They know us and what we are good at and what we are passionate about, sometimes better than we do. Other people might think we are boring but not our parents. They are the best people in the world.
3) The Dark is Scary
When you are a kid the adults around you try to tell you not to be afraid of the dark. There is nothing scary about the dark. Technically true but no one is really afraid of the dark. It is what the dark is hiding that is scary. What is beyond that curtain of night that you cannot see through.
See, when we are kids and are told not to worry about the dark it is because we are in a place that is safe. There is no reason to be afraid inside your home. There are still times when the dark is scary. When not knowing what is out in the darkness is actually very dangerous. Out on the street, in the woods, times when people want to hurt you. Even then it isn't the physical darkness that is scary, it's a different kind of darkness that makes the dark scary. It is the dark shadowy parts inside of our souls that make the world scary because those are the parts that make people want to hurt others.
However, the fact that the dark is scary doesn't mean that you have to be afraid. There is a lot of evil in the world but there is also good because God is good. It is okay to acknowledge that the dark is scary so long as you also understand that you don't have to be afraid.
4) You don't HAVE to spend time with people you don't like.
People you don't like, people who make you feel bad, people who don't treat you nicely. I remember being a kid and telling someone that you weren't going to invite them to your birthday party was the best power move you could pull. Kids do not mess around when they don't like someone. When a kid doesn't like someone they tell you AND they tell you that they don't want to spend time with you. I knew that as a kid and because I knew that I didn't play with kids who were mean to me or who I didn't like to be around. Then you reach adulthood and polite societal rules start to worm their way into your responses.
Have you ever found yourself stuck in a toxic friendship because you don't know how to tell someone that you don't want to hang out with them? It seems like everybody has at least one toxic friendship, a person that maybe isn't awful but certainly is not good for you or makes you feel good but when asked why you hang out with them you say, "because she's my friend." I had one friend like that for a long time. Everything was about her and what she was dealing with even if it was under the guise of what she wanted to do for someone else. I remember she threw a fit when I told her I wouldn't be flying home for another friend's baby shower because my work schedule wouldn't allow it, only to find out a few days later that she wasn't even going to the baby shower she just wanted me there so she could complain about not being allowed to throw the baby shower. She would sometimes call me in the middle of my health crisis to "see how I was doing" and then I would somehow end up having to comfort her.
It took me a long time to figure out that it was a toxic friendship. It was a friendship that just made me feel sick inside and like I was never good enough or like my needs and my schedule didn't matter. It took me even longer to politely extricate myself from that friendship. That is something that should be simple and is simple when you are a kid. "I don't like you, I don't want to play with you."
You don't have to play with people who make you feel bad.
That's it. Those are the things I knew as a kid but for whatever reason, I had to relearn them as an adult. I don't think I did them all 100% right as a kid. I am saying that those are important things to know that we lose as we're coming into adulthood.
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