I’m jealous of your childhood; I’m jealous of your life. How you spend so many days seeing new things, poking sticks in tidepools, running in joy with your friends.
I did not have many of the things you had. I still don’t. I tell myself, Alison, if their lives are so fantastic and rich and layered and varied….and you are with them every step of the way, isn’t your life that way, too?
Maybe.
I’m thankful for flying kites, for peregrine falcons, for soft toys that are part of our family. I thrill to explore new sand dunes, or old castles, or stick my feet in streams so cold my toes turn red almost instantly. I take comfort in relaxing into adulthood and parenthood and beinghood.
But still. I am jealous. I can hold that alongside my gratitude, but my own longing nudges me uncomfortably. I want to see more, to do more, to be more.
I try to remind myself: Alison, as you remember to value those children for who they are, remember to honour yourself, too. You are funny and wise and full of imagination. Do you know this, do you believe this? Alison, it’s hard to be subsumed by the constant wonder and joy of other people, even harder when those people don’t express what you consider to be enough gratitude.
But Alison, don’t do it for their gratitude. Do it because it’s important to raise a new generation who believe it is possible to create and imagine. Do it because they need to know how to stand up against injustice. Do it because it’s right, because you feel it to be true, because even though it reminds you constantly of all you wish you had and still need for yourself, even though that hurts sometimes, it is still needed. Valid. True.
Give them what you have wished for yourself, but remember that you’ve had these moments, too, and you’ll have them again. It’s time, soon, and you’ll need to be brave and to stretch and to be. And you know that’s possible, because you make it true for these lives in your hands, because you see it happening and unfolding every day.
It is all possible.
Curious Adventures 