BRAVE.

I want my girls to be brave. Not dumb and reckless, but brave. Unfortunately, that also require me to be brave. In my life, bravery has looked like some huge leaps of faith and crazy life changes. Right now, for them, it looks like trying something they don’t think they can do. I don’t know that there were many opportunities for them to be brave in the city. At least, not as many that were so readily available. It’s not like, at 5, we were going to let them head down the road alone. But here, I let them run free outside. Not too far. I’m still nervous about bears and snakes and them falling down a cliff or something, but I let them go. We put up a Ninja line. An American Ninja Warriors kind of set up. I take them hiking and when they want to quit, I remind them “YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS!” I want them to feel the joy of facing something difficult and beating it. I want them to know the victory of trying and failing, trying again, and conquering it. It’s something I wish I had learned growing up. I quit. A lot. I learned a response of retreat any time something caused me pain or discomfort.

I won’t make them do things I never did because I’m not trying to redeem my youth through them. But I do want to instill the principle that anything they choose to achieve, anything that life throws at them, anything that tells them that they can’t do something, that they absolutely CAN.