Old friends chatting on the playground, remembering life before kids, before marriages, when we were young and reckless and had more of a certain kind of energy.
“Life has certainly softened me,” I hear myself say.
My friend turns to me and laughs: “Really!? And when were you ever hard?”
“Well. I’m positively squishy now.” I don’t tell her that sometimes I fear I might be spineless. That I agonize over my inability to stand up for myself. To have an answer, even when I know I’m right.
The next few days I think about the question tossed off so casually. When WAS I ever hard? Then I remembered a time I was hard, back when I thought it was a badge of honor to rent an apartment because it meant I would never have to settle down, to grow up. I couldn’t celebrate a friend’s joy of finally owning a home and having a place for household things because I was refusing to give up on certain dreams, and I felt my friend had settled for less. And what I said? A hard comment about how glad I was to not have boxes of Christmas decorations to have to put places. He was taken aback. His basement Christmas boxes made him happy. And I was ashamed at how tough I wanted to seem, because Christmas boxes make me happy too. I love Christmas, and the older (softer) I get, the more I love Christmas. Now I share it with my own children – by far the most efficient softening agents in my life – and love it ever more.
Aren’t we strange creatures, the way our hardness springs to the surface? What kind of hurt is it encrusting down there where it lurks? I’m thankful for the ways the years, the children, the commitments I haven’t given up on are softening me. The more I grow, the more grace I have for Past Me. She had some crazy notions, but that’s alright. Now when we decorate at Christmas, I take her out of the boxes in the basement of the grown-up-person’s house I now own and we have a laugh together.
Post #14 of 40 Daze: A Lenten Writing Practice.
