words

So I've a new Tuesday ritual these days. As I have become a regular "soccer mom" as a nanny for three of my favorite girls, Tuesdays is gymnastics day. I spend a solid hour or so sitting there in a stinky gym watching multiple girls flip and flop and turn and twist, etc. Reminds me of the days I attempted to be a gymnast. That was before I had put it all together that my limbs were far too long to be agile and graceful like a gymnast and I was meant to awkward and gangly.

So as I sit there I usually create this interested yet not checked in glaze over (all while I attempt to cram studying in too). All the overbearing parents are pacing in the balcony trying to find their child on the gym floor or trying to control their other child as they run back and forth driving everyone else insane. It can become quite comical on some days to just watch it all go down and produce my own story for every persons lives in my head (usually makes me feel better about the mundane day to day I live).

Yet this past Tuesday as I was being ultimate second mom holding the girls shoes as the finished class, I saw a group of three girls sitting on a wall waiting for their class which was next. What caught my attention was the little tude (attitude) that one girl spoke with. She was telling the other two what some girl had said about one of them a few days ago. She swore that she stood up for them because she "lovesssssssss" her and would never do that (all said in that little girl attitude that you are never wrong... ever). "She probably just doesn't know you that well," said the original extreme tude girl. Immediately my heart sank because right then and there I snapped back to when so many people talked behind my back in elementary and middle school. It is what it is and I don't want any apologies or anyone to feel sorry for me because I'm still alive and kickin today. However it is those smart-alic girls like the one I witnessed in that stinky gym that cause so much harm. She didn't need to spread what the other girl had said behind her "supposed" friends back. It wasn't nice so why repeat it.

I'm not going to stand up on my soap box about the cruelty girls go through at that age because I'm not sure if it will ever change. I do know that my heart was forever hurt and changed as a result of some girls that were just like stinky gym girl on Tuesday. Words may be just letters together and then put into sentences but they are so powerful and so deceptive. Makes me think back to what I said to those girls when they were mean to me years ago. I'm not exactly sure what I did say, but I do know the tears that I came home with every day and the pain that sat with me for days. They're only words and yet they are so much more.

five letters

It's a funny thing to let people into your life and begin that vulnerability that let's them see just who you really are. I'd like to say I am a "what you see is what you get" kind of person. In the past few days I've realized that there are so many people that are far from that. They live in lies and continue to cover each one with another lie until they wake up one morning and realize that they are the farthest thing from genuine.

It usually takes me some time before I can fully let someone in - and by some time I mean a long while. Like so many I have baggage of my past that prevents me from letting go and letting people see the unique intricacies of my heart. Yet is that stopping me from letting anyone in at all? My past is what it is. It does not define me, but I acknowledge it is part of who I am. But it still is controlling some part of me clearly. It takes so much for me to be vulnerable; even if I have known them for years on end. Would I rather be living a life a lie and just continuing to make things up as I go along in order to make myself feel "normal" or is being closed off and down turned a better way? Is there any moderation? I don't know what it really looks like to just accept that people sincerely care of who I am and want to know me. What's that about? They are people too and have feelings and trials as do I. Why do I hesitate so much?

TRUST really is an interesting five letter word. It holds so much influence with just five letters. I even wear a bracelet daily that spells it out to me. However I continue to hold back. I fear being lied to and fear of just what it would look like to let someone see those small things that make me me. What is trust without fully doing it? Nothing. So basically I'm only lying to myself to wear that every day, yet never act it out. Where does trust have you right now? Are you ok with being vulnerable? It's hard and it can hurt.