Little Eyes To My Surprise

It's amazing sometimes how simple conversations can spark such profound thoughts and actions. 

For a while now, I have been dealing with cleaning up my life.  It started with eliminating the things I deemed the most harmful to me - some toxic friendships.  These were the people that were constantly making bad decisions and scratching their heads while muttering, "I just don't understand" at the same time.  I went on working on other things like making good relationships better, moving toward clean eating, finishing my long lost dream degree, etc.  Somewhere along the way, I put things aside and/or slacked here and there.

Today, I was spending the day with my six-year-old, Hayden.  Our plan was lunch, my son's college and then to the farmer's market.  She probably should have warned me that we were going down the path of life changes!

We pulled into Georgia Perimeter to pick up my son's book while we were out that way.  Hayden looked around at the people walking and the mass amout of cars.  She said, "Looks like there's a lot of people at iCollege today" (iCollege is the online blackboard for classes.  She knows he does online classes, but doesn't put two and two together that it's still Georgia Perimeter).  She went on to say that Jasmyn (my 16-year-old) will be going to regular college - you know, the kind where you have to be in the mornings.  I asked Hayden what kind she would be doing.  She said that she didn't know.  I told her that I did both.  I explained that I put in my years at Reinhardt and Kennesaw toiling away at 8 am classes - the toiling sometimes just being working really hard to get my brain going!  Her response blew me away.  She said, "Then that's what I will do.  I will do both."  I asked why, and she responded, "Because I love your life."

You may be thinking that it's a super sweet thing to say or whatever.  Don't get me wrong.  It is.  It's also a super scary thing.  I know in the back of my mind that kids always soak up their environments, repeat the things we wish they had never heard, etc.  But to hear her put it into words how much she looks up to me was the jolt I needed. 

The reality is that I often struggle to love my life.  I love aspects of it like my creativity or how close my immediate family is.  But like most people, I get caught up in this worry or that insecurity.  I allow negative to outweigh the positive.  And I hear Hayden's voice saying she loves my life.  Is this what I want her to love and mimic when she's older?  Absolutely not!  I want her to have nothing but joy and happiness.  I want her to have the ability to face adversity head on and know that she'll be okay no matter what.  And I want her to know that she had good role models to help shape all of that - well, and a plethora of other things that I could go on and on about.

So here I am, rededicating myself to making my life one that I not only love, I am not worried about my daughter loving, too. It's true...those little eyes are always on us!

Has your little one ever said something that prompted a change?