The decibel level was at a fever pitch and the noise and the joy in my home was explosive and expansive. My once upon-a-time teeny tiny blue-eyed babe just turned ten. As her mother, I continue to scratch my head in amazement that so many minutes and moments and memories have passed by since her arrival into our world. Instead of a giant buku birthday bonanza filled with bouncy houses and a thousand faces, this year, for the big ten, my daughter really just wanted to dial it way back and have a two-hour, almost-sleepover, homespun pajama party with her very closest friends. So way back we went, 80’s style, to silly games, basic balloons…they danced to music, they posed for pictures, they gave impromptu piggy back rides, they squirted gallons of whipped cream onto their ice cream sundaes. And they laughed and laughed and laughed. I will never, ever forget the sound of those giggles. It was a night that will forever be crystallized in my brain. Here these girls are. Ten. One foot in little kid world, the other in big kid land. Technically “tweens,” these chickies are inching ever forward toward teenage life and all the beauty and struggle that will go with it. But now? Here they are, big smiles on their faces, giddiness oozing from their pores, easily delighted just to be *together.* One of the things that I was lucky enough to observe that night was a shared level of connection. Certainly the silly superficial fun, but a deeper level of connection too and it awakened me to the fact that really, *connecting* with our people in a meaningful way (not the size or cost or location of the party) is what’s most important as we celebrate these milestones in life. Birthday parties get shuffled in some years for us, as three of our four babies all gain a year in age between Halloween and Christmas. It’s party party party. Money money money. To-do lists checked, gifts purchased, candles extinguished, moments captured, emotions documented. Enjoy, savor, yay. On to the next. But. Getting back to basics is sometimes all that’s really needed. Watching how your tiny humans interact with their peers and getting courtside seats to observing who all these kiddos are becoming, right in front of our eyes, is an incredible joy.
I know, too, in my own life, I revere and adore my dear friends. Almost always, I find, when trying to describe their awesomeness to others, or when reflecting on who they are and how we are connected, we kind of give (and get) taglines. Sometimes it’s a note about the place you met (“this is my friend from college”), or their job title or the town they live in. And then sometimes its a word about a character trait they possess (“this is so and so….she’s my spiritual friend, my hilarious friend, my creative friend,” etc.). That night at my daughter’s party, here I was laying eyes on this wide array of actively budding attributes, in their purest forms (as yet mostly untainted by life’s challenges.) Here they are, these lovely little girls, existing on this earth, just exactly as they were designed to be, and who they’ve grown to become thus far. It made me smile because some of these traits were things that most certainly led back to who I know my daughter to be. Others less so. But it opened my eyes a bit because clearly, given that each of these girls means something to the other, each one and the other possess shared interests or viewpoints or senses of humor. There are points of connection and intersection. All in this evening, I saw plainly girls who were focused and reserved, silly and gregarious, athletic and fun-loving, center of attention seekers, happy-in-the-backgrounders, encouraging and supportive, funny and jokey. Some preferred our table top tasks and quieter activities while others were more physical and opted for the wilder events. Some loved to dance and others had to be pulled into the mix. And it was all amazing. Certainly these girls are much, much more than this one night, and they will one day become far more than what they were on this one day, but I felt like I could see it all before me. I could almost *see* them at sixteen, then in college, then at weddings, then as women, and maybe one day moms. I know these girls. I was these girls. Heck, I *am* these girls. We all are. Likely there will be twists and turns and changes and developments that will take place in their lives that will impact their personalities, but the crux, the heart, the spirit of who these girls *are* has already taken root. As parents, we pop in where we can to remind them of critical life-serving tidbits here and there, infusing into their worlds some type of faith in a greater spirit, manners, laws, how to navigate tricky social situations and on and on. But here they are. Each one their own lovely prism. Think Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover…
In their basic form, prisms take white light in, split that light, and refract it into rainbows. Some light gets reflected back. It’s gorgeous. It’s an awe-inspiring give and take. A sharing, a changing, a dynamic beautiful something. What goes in does not come out the same. And so it is in life. With human relationships. And then here is my daughter, in this loud, cacophonous kitchen full of giggles and rainbows….my daughter, a prism herself, refracting all these different colors and slivers of light, different features and joys and loves from these friends of hers. And these girls, too, are prisms, bouncing and bending and reflecting that light back to her and simultaneously refracting it out into the world in different ways. It is just the same for all of us. Each one of our friends helps to tell the world a story about us and who we are and how we impact them. These friends we all are blessed to have, just by being their individual beautiful selves and by allowing them into our lives, they, for better or worse, can color and shade our existence, and us, theirs. How important to celebrate these people who lift us up, who pull us onto the dance floor, who pull us back to take pause to dive deep into heart-centered topics, who share a laugh. Friends who remember to ask about important doctors appointments, who help you to see scenarios from another perspective, who recommend books you will enjoy, who remind you of where you’ve been. What a genuinely glorious gift for us each to be bestowed in this world. Similarly, don’t forget to appreciate in yourself, by looking out at your rainbow of technicolor friends, that you are connected for a reason, and that you, too, possess skills and traits that are admired by these incredible humans. And, conversely, if you find you are surrounded by people who are causing more drain, more harm, more fatigue…who make you feel less-than or down…who dim your light, remember…we need more prisms in this world, both to be and to behold. Perhaps its worth a moment of reflection about the connections in our lives and if we are brightening each other as best we can. It’s a helpful reminder from time to time for us all to look out at our friends, the ones we hold closest to our hearts. It’s the holiday season and how light we might feel if we could set down whatever mental or emotional baggage we are carrying with any number of human relationships. What growth could exist for us? Really, the light within that we each have is best when shared. How beautiful it is to imagine the individual light we each hold within our souls radiating back and forth, to and through each other. Consider this. It’s been said we each, individually, possess a light to contribute to the world…imagine if we are more than just one light. What if we are all actually prisms, together changing and transforming one another, capable of producing a wildly exciting gleeful light show *because of each other* instead of all just being flickering candles in the darkness. Imagine. Happy holiday season, friends. xo
Care to share your thoughts?