June 13, 1994
I had just turned 9 (my previous memory thought it was 7). My mom home schooled us for a while. She was the one who encouraged my writing. It was part of our curriculum, but I’m glad I’ve held onto a passion for it. I have a compilation of 5 journals that I’ve filled these last 30 years. It’s wild.
Last night I intended to color to calm my mind before bed. Just so happens my journals were in the same moving box. I pulled them out instead because I had been meaning to look through them again with a new perspective.
My daughter came down a few minutes later and we spent about 30 minutes reading through random entries from 10-14 years old. We laughed the WHOLE time. Even the part where I found my dead cat 😬😂
I think it’s good for her to hear that her teen life struggles are not unique to her. We all struggle with self confidence at that age, and figuring who we are in this big world is hard with the standards everyone sets for us.
I like to encourage her to be herself, not to doubt her intuition, and to feel her feelings. I have promoted honesty without judgement so we have open doors of communication. I tell her when she’s right but also when she’s wrong. Parenting is hard, and there are “instruction manuals,” but I think the best way to parent is helping them stay in tune with their emotions. The rest will come.
I don’t want to be a part of the social agenda. It felt too suffocating for me to live up to SO many standards, and now that I’ve released that need in adulthood it is SOO freeing.
Don’t be afraid to be yourself. The ones that matter won’t care, and the ones that care DON’T MATTER. 💚
A Beautiful Disaster 