TWENTY TWENTY VISION

Let’s be real.

There’s no new haircut, or goal sheet laid out in my office. In fact I’m currently sitting in the nasty probably flu laden playground at the chic filet while my children are running like rug rats. Sexy I know. Glamorous. Totes. But here’s what I do know what’s happening in twenty twenty. So far. And I like it. 

I picked a word this year. Maybe it’s a Southern thing, maybe it’s just a thing. But I learned of this a few years ago from a few of my Nashville female friends. It was this spoken word ceremony we had one evening where we declared a word for the new year. And why we chose it. It was emotional. Tender. Beautiful. And mostly, powerful. And I like the tradition. It’s kind of like the cooler version of new year resolutions. Only better. Because it’s a word. One word. Sometimes a noun, sometimes an adjective. But in my case the last few words, it’s been an action. A verb. And twenty twenty is no different. Because babies do that to you. They teach you things. Big things. And in my case. They taught me this decade to return.

Return to me means so many things. But mostly, it means to return to her. The girl I see in the image above. Not because I must return to my past. But because she is me. And when life happens, things get lost. They evolve. They become bruised and broken. And they pick themselves up and they eventually become a bigger, better stronger version of who they once were. But when I look at the little girl in the image I remember her. And suddenly I freeze. 

She is so many things. Funny, silly, sort of Chinese looking, happy, full of wonder, adventurous, wild, unabashedly living, brave, unafraid, loves cart wheels, loves the record player, her walkman, loves to sing for silver dollars, loves to dance with massive reckless abandon, loves her Jordache jeans more than chocolate, sings louder than anyone prefers and she walks everywhere with determination on her face as if the whole world is paying attention. 

She’s a child. 

She’s beautiful and perfect on all levels. Unaffected by the depths of the world, of relationships, of wars, of family secrets, of pain, of suffering, of any and all the trials and tribulations that might be beyond the front porch and salty breeze she feels while sitting on her mom’s lap in the California sunshine. 

She’s me.

But at some point, we grow. And we become who we are meant to be. Subconsciously we walk through life unaware that that little girl existed so freely. Or that she existed at all. We quickly and eagerly move on to the teenager who desperately seeks approval, the young adult who is dying to explore, who make mistakes and laughs and cries at them and maybe suffers through it, to the adult who decides to settle down and become responsible and aware of all the beauty that lies ahead and also behind. 

See that’s the thing. All of the life before me is brilliant. It’s my teachers. It’s the lessons within the history of my story. But what I realized upon twenty nineteen becoming twenty twenty, was this. Life is not a fairytale like Mary Poppins suggests. Not that it’s not beautiful and full of color and grand views of the Tetons and everlasting love. But as we grow and we learn and we experience, we also change. 

Not her. 

She was before all that. 

And as I raise my babies on the daily grind every day, I see her. I see her in them. And I’m full of hope. And also on my A game so I can give them their best shot at a beautiful life, the way my Mom and Dad did for me. 

And so I want to return to her. I want to give the me today, the freedom she felt then. The joy she embarked on minute by minute because she was genuinely unafraid of the impossible. The ability to be free and dream as far as one can dream without handcuffs or restraints. It sounds basic. But it goes deep. 

Because somewhere along the mileage of me, she was left in the shadows. Because life. Because naturally that’s the name of the game. 

But I think for me evolving, this is my word. Return.

Return to her.

Return to loving myself and my life as if it’s the greatest gift of all the gifts one could receive. 

Because isn’t that the coolest thing about being a child?

I love her. And I love me. And I’m excited to squeeze her tight and tell her that I want to be her when I grow up.

I like that idea. I’m sticking to it. 

Happy 2020 friends. Let’s giver her all we got.

K, love you bye.