A Shortportant One

Yes, short, and important. Two things my blog posts almost never are.

If you can only pick one thing at which to be good, make it loving people.

It occurred to me last night that I'm not really good at much of anything. I like to sing to and I like to write, but plenty of people are way better at it than I am. I try to do the best I can do at my job (and so far I do well enough that they keep paying me to return, knock wood), but I'm not the best at it and may never be. I can't sew on a fucking button. I mean, I could if I absolutely had to, but it probably would not stay on my pants the entire day. And my house is probably always going to be a mess. And I'm more than likely always going to be a little bit fat (which would be better than being a lot fat like right now).

I am, however, really fucking super great at loving my kid. As she was cuddled up to me last night and I was reading to her because yes, reading to her is still awesome even though she can read, I thought, THIS is where it's at. THIS is the thing of which I'm most proud, that my kid never for a single second EVER doubts how much I love her.

Damn it all to heck, I just put on eye makeup and I'm tearing up like a little crybaby.

Everything we do, especially with our kids but this should go for everyone and everything, we should try to do it with COMPASSION. I'm talking about kids and parenting here, mainly, but you can figure out how to apply this even if you don't have kids and never want to have any of those and if you don't, hey, I get it, because it's a hard job and kids are not for everyone. For. Real. But even if they do stuff that is wrong or bad, we can correct them with love and compassion. It's like, I don't like what you did, but I still love YOU. You're going to have to get your timeout or get grounded or get your phone taken away, but let's TALK about this. And here's why this is bad and so help me, don't you ever do that again!

But I still LOVE you.

If you kick the bucket tomorrow, I GUARANTEE the thing of which you will be the most proud of is not that you are the best at your job or the smartest or the prettiest in your class or that you always win at backgammon or whatever. You will be the proudest of the fact that people you love knew you loved them because you were always telling them and showing them.

Especially your kids. They're not accessories. We're growing human beings. Literally. Like, what a big deal that is.

I know I'm lucky. My kid can be a pain and a diva and dramatic and emotional and unreasonable. But mostly she is sweet and good and full of joy and the light of my life. So loving her is a piece of cake. I know this. But still, for some reason I just felt like I wanted to say today that

the thing you should want to be the best at is loving. Especially your kids.

P. S. Sorry, I thought this was gonna be shorter, I really did!!