"There it is... I said it.."

I was going to sit down this morning and blog about our mini-vacation in Berlin but then I got thinking about my daughter. Yesterday a girlfriend sent me a text, about my daughter and a school interaction that she witnessed.

"The girls were reading, identify words that they don’t know the meaning of or how to spell. Abby identified a word.... (A word the other children knew) Abby looked up and said “Well I don't spell very well, there it is! I said it.""

I got thinking about the power, the liberation, the sheer strength that it takes for people to admit their weakness. I got thinking about the bravery of an 8 year old little girl who was willing to tell her peers who she really was. I am not saying that she showed her soul to her friends, but that she simply did not hide the truth. Hiding the truth has become so much a part of who we are as a society. We build ourselves around the perfect imagine, forgetting who we really our much of the time! Or we are forced to hide the true us at the risk of being bullied, or embarrassed! We become afraid that we don’t fit society's standards and expectations.

I too fall victim to this. I want to be seen as the perfect mother, wife, friend, and daughter. However, in actuality I am human! I yell at my kids, forget birthdays, and have once or twice (most likely more) pissed some people off. I want people to see me as intelligent, when in fact I love TMZ more than NPR. I want to be sophisticated but love jeans and t-shirts! I struggle with an addiction to bread and therefore I have gained weight. I have to learn by the example by daughter sets, when it comes up or I need help, I must admit the truth, not hide from it! What I can state from fact is simply that I am trying, and for me and my daughter that is good enough!

 

“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”
― Coco Chanel, The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman

 

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

 

“You are you. Now, isn't that pleasant?”
― Dr. Seuss

 

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story