It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. -E.E. Cummings
One day lately, I opened YouTube, and an interview with Joanna Gaines on the TODAY Show was randomly suggested. I do not keep up with her, but I have seen enough episodes of Fixer Upper to appreciate her creativity. I fell prey to the algorithm and clicked. It was a thought-provoking exchange about Joanna’s book, The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters. The interview opened with a self-voiced excerpt from the audiobook:
“It started with the picture you see on the cover of this book, because that little girl, the one with the missing tooth and messy hair, she knew who she was before the world chimed in. And part of writing my story down has been in hopes of finding her again. Things have gotten blurry. I have gotten blurry.”
“..she knew who she was before the world chimed in.”
Those words really got to me. Is that not a journey we all go on? Many researchers suggest that personalities are well developed (though not entirely) before a child reaches school age. For better or worse, our outlook on the world and ourselves at that time is probably about as untainted as it will ever be thereafter. From that young age forward, we begin to deal with the echoes of the world in our heads when we look in the mirror, and boy, are there a lot of echoes! The image we see becomes cloudier by the day.
The suggestion that we rediscover our messy, untamed selves was (and is) very interesting to me. What does that even mean? Maybe it is subjective, but I have been thinking it over. Growing up is tough, being an adult is tough, and aging is tough. Perhaps those rocky roads leave us bruised, scarred, and tired. Maybe we forget who we were before we lost the audacity of innocence. I am not talking about returning to “childish” things and neglecting adult responsibility. It is natural to leave some things behind because they no longer serve us. However, what if we reached inside ourselves and found the vigor that often gets lost in the rubble? How, then, would we approach life? Would we explore more? Laugh more? Love more? DO more?
These are all questions I have asked myself. I– who am no more than the little girl with the red hair down in her eyes, dirty feet, and scraped-up knees. I hear my young self saying, “Explore, laugh, love, DO MORE.”
“If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.” – James A. Garfield
(Our adopted Saint Bernard dog, Molly, about 1994)
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