There are days when I don’t start these posts until it is much later than I planned or anticipated. Life, as the saying goes, sometimes gets in between us and our plans. Even so, despite my 17 year old suggesting it would be okay to skip a day, I settle myself in front of my laptop, fingers hovering over the keys, and I invite my heart and mind to collaborate, to bring ideas to life first in my mind, then through my fingers and onto the page. Because here’s the thing—loving my teenagers is a choice, and, honestly, it’s an easy one to make most days. And, even on the days when my brain is tired and the time is later than I’d like it to be, still, I love my teenagers. Every day. Because it’s a thing I choose and when you choose to do something, when you choose to focus on that thing, you become much more acutely aware of the very thing upon which you place your energy.
Because of this daily blogging experience, I move through my day much more aware of the things about my teenagers that I love and appreciate and admire. Things that encourage me or inspire me. Things that bring me joy and things that make me proud. As I’ve faithfully shown up here, I have noticed the well of love and delight for my teenagers that wells up to overflowing in my heart each day. While words may fail me at times, my heart never does.
Sometimes I move through the day and I notice the smallest inclinations of my heart, the ways it responds to a moment I observe only in passing. Today, those moments have come and gone, but when I stopped here and there in my tasks, I found myself awash in the pleasures of parenting these two remarkable young women. Sometimes it is as simple as the smile I catch when one of them is working on something and doesn’t realize I am watching them. Sometimes it is in a quiet moment before I engage them in a conversation, when I come upon a mostly closed door and catch a glimpse of one of them listening to music and sketching and I pause for a few extra moments, not wanting to disturb their creative efforts but also wanting to steal a few moments just getting to see them wrapped in their own joy.
Other moments are more obvious and bring us together, like pulling fresh-baked soft chocolate sugar cookies from the oven and feeling a joy, and expectation that rises up just before I invite each of them to make their selection, enjoying their delight and anticipation of a favorite treat. Or the pause that fills the air as a favorite scene plays in a movie and the quiet settles around us until a shared joy erupts in that stillness.
Today has been filled with small moments that remind me why this project matters so much to me. Moving through my day, moving around our shared living spaces, it’s obvious to me how connected we are; in the joys, in the frustrations, in the tears, in the laughter. Life has always been about relationships for me, about conversations, about real moments that may not necessarily always be the “pretty” moments. Still, those moments matter and I treasure them sometimes even more for their raw emotion and authentic reality. Perhaps it is because I like knowing these two young women recognize our relationship, our connection, as a safe space where they are invited to be who they are with all the emotions that can accompany that. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way because loving someone is about loving all of them—and that always includes the messier parts of who we are. Without those messy parts, we would not recognize the beauty we also hold. Truly, I’ve always believed broken glass reflects light much more readily, and beautifully, than a whole piece of glass.
One of my favorite treasures is a collection of beach glass collected from several different shores. If you’ve ever visited a beach, you probably know that the sand tends to hold shells of all shapes and sizes, some whole, some broken (guess what? I favor the broken shells). But beach glass is a rare treasure. For one thing, it does not appear on every beach. For another thing, even if it tends to wash ashore at a particular beach, it is not easy to spot it among the collection of shells and miles of sand. And actually, a true piece of beach glass has to be well worn by the sea, no longer clear or jagged but opaque and smoothed over. Those pieces reflect a deeper beauty for me. When I look at these two remarkable young women, I see that kind of treasure. I see that kind of beauty. May they also come to see what I see in them.