The 500 Words a Day Challenge!

Hello everyone,

Jeff Goins, who hosts a brilliant blog for writing advice, has started up a 500 Words a Day Challenge for the month of January. I have been going at it for a few days now, and I have to say, I write much more freely and with far greater results when I have a smaller goal! This is the piece I wrote today; I may backtrack and post more pieces from previous days.

This piece, based on a prompt by Jeff, is a letter to my child:

My dear Baby,

You are so beautiful and pure. Your smile illuminates a room, and your unadulterated joy when you discover something interesting brings the little girl in me back out too. I love spending my days with you - who wouldn’t want to fill their days with such sweet, true love?

As I watch you breathe in all the curiosities and wonders of this big world, I catch myself already thinking of when I will send you off to school, or to let you play with the other kids in the playground. I think of the days when you will go join your friends for an afternoon of play once school lets out for the summer, and the day you head off to college. I think of those days, and I get scared. 

Your sweet little mind would probably wonder, why is Mama afraid? Aren’t those things good too? Is she afraid she’ll miss me? Of course, that is a part of it. I know I will miss you when you become more independent (and I remind myself of that on days when I’ve spent maybe a little too much time with you). But there is another part to this fear, this worrying. I want to try my very best to fill your heart with love, with trust, with the habit of always acknowledging the goodness in people. I want to help you hang onto your glorious wonder that I see whenever you exclaim “CAR!” every time you see anything with wheels, your compassion that I see when you hug your doll and study his face, your sweet smile when you get to know new people - keeping all these beautiful qualities will help you grow into such a wonderful young man, the kind we wish we would see more of in this world. 

It is exactly that - this world - that fears me. I fear that those boys you go off and play with will teach you things that contradict the beauty and goodness in this world. I don’t fear the boys themselves; it would be hypocritical for me to ask you not to judge people, and then judge them myself. But sometimes other children can be cruel, and they can make you feel bad or weird or wrong to do or think certain things, like to enjoy being with your Mama and Papa, or to not like guns, or to not want to pick anyone to have a crush on, because you’d rather relate to people as brothers and sisters. I’m scared that, out of an intense desire to be accepted and included, that you might exclude me and Papa from your life, or you might decide to hide away the best parts of yourself, all in the name of “being cool” or “being a man.” 

I can’t bear to lose you, not only for my own sake, but for yours. Please, my love, do not ever compromise yourself just to fit in. Of course, I don’t want you to ever feel alone, though it will probably happen at some point. But you know what? In those moments, there might be other boys and girls who feel alone too, because what they’re scared to admit is, they think and feel just like you. They don’t want to laugh at the kid that seems different. They don’t want to have boyfriends or girlfriends. They want to share their love of science or show off their stamp collection, but they worry that other kids will think it’s stupid. Those kids feel alone too. 

Here’s where you come in, my love. When you have the courage to let your You-ness shine brightly, you give others the courage to do the same. And when those kids find it within themselves to be brave like you, and step forward in their Them-ness, then they don’t have to feel alone anymore. And neither will you.

So please, don’t buy into the messages you will hear (and I’m so sorry, but you will hear them whether I let you or not), whether they come from mouths or screens or eyes or hands. Messages that tell you to assert yourself through force, or through anger, or through apathy. Don’t let those messages strip you, bit by bit, of your divine essence. If you do, you will wake up years later, forgetting most of the names of the people you tried so hard to impress, and wishing you could remember yourself. The true you. 

Let’s be true, together. It’ll be worth it, I promise.

Love,

Mama