feeling out loud

When I imagined being a mom when I was younger, I never really imagined what my kids would be like. I certainly never guessed that I'd have one that was so much like me that it would almost be painful to see.

My kids are a pretty good mix of Dad and me. But The Bean is more Dad, and Boo is more me. It took me a few years to realise how much Boo is like me. Mostly because I wasn't fully like me for most of my life.

As a very young child, I was loud and talkative and full of passion. I won't dwell on what turns out to have been a somewhat difficult childhood because of my dad's alcoholism or his later long, drawn out battle with cancer that left me and my mom on our own when I was 13. But those life experiences dictated that I needed to be quiet, to suppress my chattiness and to smother my feelings. Because those things were too big, and there was no room for them in our lives. Cancer took up most of the air time.

It took me years to find that loudness, the passion, the zeal, and the plain old self-confidence I was born with. It took a while, too, to really see it once I'd found it. Here's where I finally saw it: in a conversation about Boo.

Last summer I spent long, warm evenings falling in love. In friend-love with a lovely person who taught me a lot. He taught me that I can have a passionate disagreement about politics and still respect and care for my opponent. He showed me that exploring different parts of myself isn't so scary. And he reflected myself back to me.

Over a glass of wine on a patio one night, I was telling him about Boo (cf so vain).  About the kid's amazing self-confidence. About the passion. About how she just seems to get joy out of being obstinate. He chuckled, looked and me and said, "I wonder where she gets that."

I gave him a side glance, with a great big question mark.

"Come on!" he said. "She's just like you."

So she is, I realised in that moment. That's me I'm watching walking around out there, with this confidence. With those convictions. With the deep, deep feelings.

I have always been sensitive. I have always felt things deeply. But only recently have I rediscovered that and let myself feel everything just as it is. No more filters. So tonight I sit here, feeling everything quite keenly. Including a sweet sadness. I miss that friend. People come in and out of our lives, and I believe that we learn so much about ourselves if we pay close enough attention. I am thankful for the friend-love and the experiences. I am thankful for having learned that I, too, feel out loud like Boo. And I am thankful tonight for all those out loud feelings.