Ask yourself for one moment what your feelings have been on the eve of some act involving courage, whether it be physical courage, or moral or intellectual . . . what has happened to you? If it has really called forth courage, has it not felt something like this: I cannot do this. This is too much for me. I shall ruin myself if I take this risk. I cannot take the leap. It’s impossible. All of me will be gone if I do this, and I cling to myself.
And then supposing the Spirit has conquered and you have done this impossible thing, do you find afterwards that you possess yourself in a sense that you never had before. That there is more of you? . . . So it is throughout life . . . you know “nothing ventured nothing won” is true in every hour, it is the fibre of every experience that signs itself into the memory.
– John Neville Figgis
My Precious Girls,
We are in a season of courage. Every one of us is beginning a new chapter in the book of our lives. You are both starting new schools. I have begun a new job after fourteen years at home and Dad is trying, for the first time, to be your primary caregiver after school. None of us are what we were but we are also not yet what we will be. Right now, we are stuck in a stage of becoming and becoming takes grit. That’s why I want to give you some words of encouragement as we hike our way up this new, thrilling, treacherous terrain.
I’ve climbed intimidating mountains several times at my age. Once you’ve scaled a few steep paths, it does get easier to climb. I’ve been the new person at school or at work enough times that the accompanying nerves feel less powerful than they used to feel. More than once, I’ve given a speech that made fear trickle down the back of my neck while I made an effort to sound calm and self-assured. I’ve said “hello” to the cute boy who seems out of reach and, miracle of miracles, found that he liked me back (I married that boy). However, you shouldn’t hear me say that being new ever gets easy. It doesn’t. The fear that comes with doing new things just gets familiar, like a tolerable old friend whose company you’d never choose, but who has some redeeming qualities nonetheless.
You are both in your tween and teenage years. If I close my eyes and think back to those years in my own life, my gut gets a little nauseous and my face feels wrong all over again. When I was your age, I was sure the whole world was looking at me and seeing all the most awkward things! I was sure that I was so much less sophisticated, happy and kissable than the other girls! I was sure that this misery would never end and that the best thing to do was to fold right up, tuck myself away and stay as quiet as possible until the sheer embarrassment of being me in this world stopped being so furiously intimidating.
I am writing to you now to beg you not to do that. I am writing to you from your future, when you will know what I know now. I cannot tell you how much I am dying for you to know one very important thing: You are enough for the world just as you are. You belong. You are perfect today with all your faults and bluster, your pain and your awakening glory. Bring them all the way into the room and just go for it, girls. Show up for your life every day, even when you are new — especially when you are new. Show up even when you feel like doing so will break you into a million pieces.
It is imperative that you courageously insist on being you and I’ll tell you why: You need practice. You must practice being audaciously present so often and so vehemently that when you grow up, it becomes second nature. The world will never invite you to be this way; I can promise you that. And I know so many women, myself included, who have lived much of their lives trying very hard not to make anyone uncomfortable. They have convinced themselves to be full-time listeners instead of leaders. They have kept their opinions stuffed in their throats like sad, wrinkled plastic bags, not minding if their own air supply was blocked a little. The world is no better for it. Take it from a reformed folder-upper. This is not the way to go.
Folding yourself up makes you weary and it also denies the world of a very important thing – the fullness of you. Your ideas matter and they can help other people thrive, but only if you let them out. What would our world be if all the neatly-folded women in it could apply themselves, without reservation, to solving problems and making people laugh, designing new products and writing new books? We don’t yet know. We women and girls are all too worried that we might make someone squirm with the recognition that we acted on our hopes before we had it all figured out.
I see this shadow of self-doubt starting to take over your hearts. For instance, the other day, I suggested to one of you that you go ask a teacher for a favor. “I don’t want to be that girl,” you cried, “It is too embarrassing and I don’t know what I am doing!” As your mother, I am imploring you. BE THAT GIRL. Be the girl who talks more than she should when she gets really excited about a new plan. Be the girl who asks the first question in a crowded room. Be the girl who firmly disagrees with the loud, obnoxious person who is absolutely sure that she should yield to their greatness. Be the girl who does something new in the face of a thousand cries of, “That’s not how it’s done!” Our world needs THAT GIRL to ruffle its feathers a little, to shake it out of its stupor, to figure out how to solve problems that it hadn’t yet identified. Our workplaces and schools, our mosques and synagogues and churches all need “the new person” even when they seem perfectly content to let all the excellent girls within their walls remain extraordinarily quiet. Today, we get to be the new girls. Let’s not waste this golden opportunity to make everything we touch better and stronger through the full strength of our efforts. Let’s become THAT GIRL together.
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