I suppose it’s only natural for nostalgia to inch its way into our minds as the days go by. One of the things that can spark a strong sense of nostalgia for me and for my girls are photos that call to mind specific memories and moments of their younger selves. For my girls, often this causes them to consider how “cringy” they used to be, asking me about what am I wearing or, even more so, why are we doing that thing? Of course, for me, those same moments recall sweet and often funny moments and the ways my girls embraced life and themselves without worry or concern about what anyone else might think. Back then, they stepped into their days boldly.
It’s a bit sad how, as we grow older, that kind of bold confidence ebbs at least slightly. We become more concerned with how we appear to the world, a world that I am convinced barely considers us at all because they are far too busy thinking about their own things. Still, I have appreciated the ways my girls have managed to sidestep some of those teenage traps. While they do voice concerns about how they appear to the world, I also see glimpses within them that those boldly confident girls live on.
I love that in their own ways, they are each taking small steps and exploring who they are and what they value. Whether it’s the music they choose to listen to or the clothing style they are exploring or the activities they feel drawn to, I love watching them moving in new directions. I don’t know if they realize it, but those kinds of decisions exhibit the same confidence that allowed them to adorn themselves with colorful playsilks as if they were royals ruling invented countries or popular and widely-adored rock stars of their own bands.
While the world will try to stamp each of us into a cookie-cutter version of everyone else, I love watching my girls taking those steps that lead them to stand out, to be different, to be the amazing women they are designed and created to be. I love watching my oldest teen curate awesome outfits based on the fashions of some of her favorite glam & hair metal rockers. I love reading the carefully crafted and beautiful words that form poems about life and love and being true to yourself my youngest teen writes. I love listening to the insightful observations my oldest shares about her autistic experience in a neurotypical world and believe her words will help create necessary change in the world. I love listening to my teens’ exchanges that indicate how different and yet the same they are today from those memories on Facebook.
They are supposed to be different, right? We all are, as we grow and change while we travel our paths through this world. But what I love is that even as they change, they have held onto the core ideals that make them who they are—that fierceness, that confidence, that boldness of those young years when they were never afraid to try out ideas and try on different versions of themselves. Now, as then, they nurture the possibilities of who they are. Now, as then, they are brilliant, reflective, dynamic diamonds who consistently sparkle with a sense of self in a world that doesn’t always welcome such things.
I love catching glimpses of each of their hearts when they embrace who they are and shrug off the world’s ideas and its attempt to fit them, all of us, into its expectations and ideas and lemming status. As I watch them, as I live alongside them, witnessing them expressing their true selves, I am not so much nostalgic as I am hopeful and proud. Because despite the doubts they may have at times, I see in them two bold, confident, and amazing young women who I have no doubt will change this world with a brilliance that will reflect light and cascades of color in a world that so desperately needs them.