In search of the girl I never was

Once upon a time I was a little girl.

That’s how the story goes.

The thing is I don’t believe it’s true.

I am almost certain I was born an old soul.

For the sake of clarity, I am not saying that I was robbed of a childhood. My opportunity to be a child was not stolen because being a child was never in the cards for me. I have never had a child’s view of the world. My view of the world has always been huge. As a small child I wanted to abolish money so no one could ever be poor and while other children played kickball, I played Adoption Agency. You’ve probably never heard of it, because I made it up. I took notebooks and made lists and lists of children that needed homes, with all of their identifying information, and then matched them with families. Don’t get me wrong, I played normal children’s games, sometimes with great abandon. But as a general rule it never felt natural to me and nothing ever seemed simple and one-dimensional. I have always known this was true but the opportunity to watch my son, who is such a child, play with total immersion and joy, has clarified it on a new level for me. He lives in a world that is all about him. What he thinks, feels, and experiences in the moment is all that matters. Will he have to grow beyond this? Absolutely. Is it delightful to watch him be a child while he is a child? More than you could possibly know.

As a child I wanted nothing more than to be a “normal” kid. It was a very difficult and lonely childhood. As a small child I fretted over global injustice and small scale pettiness and felt overwhelming distress by both. My gifts of empathy and intuition were present, but my skills to manage them were not. So I walked my world, absorbing the emotions of those around me, with no filter and no defenses. An intuitive woman walking around in little girl skin makes adults and other children profoundly uncomfortable, and I absorbed every ounce of discomfort, distrust, and dislike they felt. Even the adults that deeply loved me were perpetually confounded by me. Everyone wanted me to be a kid, including me, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make it happen. As I aged, I learned to hide it better. I tried to keep my odd thoughts and feeling to myself more, but they never left me.

Becoming an adult has been a wonderful thing for me. I fit in my own skin better than ever and have an adult’s perspective to go with a huge view of the world. I have skills and boundaries that keep me safe from the emotions and judgments of those around me. My eccentricities have become gifts rather than curses. It has also allowed me to give birth to my daughter, another old soul, and to love her with a depth and breadth that leaves me no option but to love the old soul in little girl skin that I was.

But still….I sense I missed something by never being a girl….something really special. I want to be goofy, silly, and playful without gauging the emotional energy and comfort of those around me. I want to laugh out loud at inappropriate things without worrying that someone may be offended. I want to live inside of my own head, think about what I want, and let others worry about themselves. Not all the time of course, not even most of the time. The majority of my life, both personally and professionally, is centered around the emotional caretaking of others. I chose this and I am happy with my choice. The point of finding the girl inside of myself is not to lose that, it is simply to find a small slice of life that is only about me having fun in the moment. I have never had this and I think I deserve it.

My conscious commitment to this process started with Facebook. I decided that what I chose to post would be exactly what I wanted to post, nothing more or less. Old habits are hard to break and it’s been hard for me at times. I have forced myself to post a few political and religious things that I knew would upset someone. And I have forced myself not to interfere in the ensuing debate between my friends, even when it makes me uncomfortable. In another example, the other day, a friend posted a link to a YouTube video that made me laugh hard. I immediately wanted to share it because it gave me joy, but it took me half a day to do so out of my fear of offending somebody. I eventually made myself because I am determined to have this.

This blog is another avenue for me to totally be my irreverent, quirky, opinionated self. That is why I named it the girl who loves woo, rather than the woman who loves woo. This blog is honoring the girl in me, who can say whatever she wants, because taking care of others isn’t her job. I love and value the woman in me and she is front and center in almost all areas of my life. But this, this I’m giving to my girl.