Four Girls Later

My oldest and I have been reading Little Women together. I knew that I loved this literary classic surrounding the March family, but I had no idea how it would effect me as a mother. A mother who in fact has been blessed with four little women herself. Mrs. March, or Marmie, is consistently teaching incredible wisdom to her four girls and anyone that would dare enter the journey behind the cover. She truly is the embodiement of four girls later. In fact, if you’d like to know my heart for my daughters, read the very end of chapter 9. Her plans for her children could not be spoken more beautifully and clearly.

It had me thinking about the things I say to my own little women and the things I will get to say to them as they get older. In truth, it has turned a little introspective. So introspective in fact that I began to write down things I wish I could’ve told my young self. Perhaps yours could’ve heard the same. 

1. You’re constantly being saturated with new information. You’re navigating how you view the world, where you stand ethically- religiously- morally and you’re deciding your world view. Don’t take it all so seriously, you’ll be shocked to know most of it all evolves into something else. 
2. In that same vein, your opinions sweet girl, you feel everything so strongly. With SUCH PASSION. You have so many opinions about so many things and you have dreams and goals to coincide with many of them. Guess what, in fifteen years you won’t have a single strong opinion left. Not about politics or parenting, medical care or sports teams, family members lives or which kind of car is best. In fact you will view the world with total humanity and everything in it as flawed, imperfect, and created. Life’s lessons have a way of rounding those sharp edges, and that’s certainly not always easy. 
3. Those that really love you will support you being the very biggest version of yourself. They will emphatically support new careers, travels, degrees, exercise plans, new hobbies. You name it, those that are truly for you will be cheering the loudest as you grow.
4. Learn early to not spend money you don’t have. Any bit of debt you accumulate, I promise you will have no idea what it was spent on a year later while you’re still paying it off. 
5. You’re going to mess up a lot. You’re going to get hurt and you’re inevitably going to hurt others. In fact, there will be many times you’re wrongly motivated, you behave poorly to cover your own shortcomings or shame, your tongue is too sharp, and your desire to be right makes you so very wrong. What you do next often matters more than the mistake, stay humble. 
6. Your zest for life and sense of adventure, fight for that. I’m talking white knuckle- teeth gritting fight for that and hold it for dear life. Even when life feels like more of a duty than an adventure, ESPECIALLY when life feels like more of a duty than an adventure. 
7. Don’t settle in relationships. Don’t alter yourself to be what you think others deem more palatable. Stop spending nights curating a certain version of yourself that you think will be more enjoyable to be with. Spoiler alert. You will experience what it feels like to be truly loved and truly known by an incredible man for exactly who you are. 
8. You have been gifted the two best parents walking the earth, flaws and all. The quicker you view them as human beings navigating this world the best they can too, the sooner you can cast off viewing them from the lens of familiar. It is then that you realize they are evolving, making mistakes, getting it right, and growing in this world just like you.
9. Just go ahead and love the outside of you. That reflection in the mirror looking back at you will house, grow, and nourish four babies. She will serve you well. She will climb mountains and swim in the depths of the sea, she will travel to foreign countries and she will eat delicious foods. There will be times that you look back at pictures of her and wish you had been confident and loved her. 
10. Finally sweet girl, God wastes nothing. You will spend the next decades of your life completely awestruck at the ways the good you’ve experienced becomes great and the bad you’ve experienced gets redeemed.

It’s one heck of a ride, shine your light. 

Xoxo, 

Sara