A friend from college died last week and I spent part of my weekend down the rabbit hole, after I went looking for a photo I remembered of us together. College photos led to high school scrapbooks, and I paused on this gem from 1985. I was 17, the same age as my youngest son.
I remember reading somewhere, if your work involves children (or, really, anyone younger than you) you should find a photo of yourself around the same age as the people you’re serving and keep it on your desk – a reminder of what it was like to be their age. I’ve always loved that advice and found it works for parenting, too. I showed this artifact to my youngest and asked him what his bio would look like. He shrugged and sort of rolled his eyes, then made some comment about how different my life was from the one I planned.
“Is it?” I asked. Then I connected the dots between my 17-year-old aspirations and my 53-year-old reality.
No, I didn’t write the sequel to Gone with the Wind, but I write and have 10 years of published blog posts. No, I didn’t end up as our first female president, but I ran for magistrate in a district that’s never had a woman magistrate. And that theatre background kept me in college when I didn’t know what I wanted to do or be, and gave me confidence and creative energy I still use today.
Brene Brown said something in a podcast once about connecting the dots of our lives – especially the ones we’d rather erase or skip over – requiring equal parts self-love and curiosity. I remember pausing the podcast, grabbing a pen and paper, and transcribing her words so I could revisit them. “I used to look back at those far flung dots as mistakes and wasted time, but allowing myself to be curious about who I am and how everything fits together changed that. As difficult and dark as some of those times were, they all connect to form the real me.”
Now I need to model for my son that self-love and curiosity for the dots that lie ahead. Both his dots and mine, for my picture is far from complete.
I love the idea of connecting the dots, and seeing the journey we’ve been on and not erasing the dots or thinking of them as wasting time. I like to think that all the unpublished books in several big file drawers all helped me get to a different dot along the way and weren’t a waste of time. We all need to learn to be kinder to ourselves, and as we do so, to be kind to those around us. Thank you for this post, Leah!
Thanks for saying all of that, Kathy. I love having my words reflected back for me and hearing them from your perspective!
Leah, it’s only with mature reflection that we can start seeing the paths in our lives—where they converge, where they’ve meandered separately, where they all feed into the Grand Journey. One of my favorite quotes is Paula D’Arcy’s “God comes to you disguised as your life.” (I wrote that down when she spoke in Lubbock years ago, and so it may not be exactly as shown in print.) If only we truly understood, as younger people, how all these interweavings and divergences are actually good for us—when we can use them for life-giving instead of life-diminishing—we might be less anxious and be better able to live fully into the experiences. But that’s not the way it works for the great majority of us. We need the reflection on dot-connecting over time, and how grateful I am that you’ve so artfully and clearly articulated this. See?? This is just one more illustration of why you write, and why you SHOULD write. (Not to “should” on you, but I am!)
Oh, SarahLee, please keep the SHOULDS coming! I need them and rely heavily on them for so many things I know I benefit from, but drag my feet nonetheless.