Kids say the darndest things

As an adult, you think you're smart. You think you know things. You think you know how to handle certain issues in your life. But the words of a teenage girl showed me that I was wrong.

My daughter Emily is a very cool kid. I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom. She truly is very unique and interesting, and sometimes I'm surprised that she sprang from any combination of mine and her father's genes (although I credit myself with her amazing wit). Of course, I do have some bias. She is my child afterall, and I love her. But more than that...I admire her.

She doesn't follow the crowd. She dresses in her own way - she made earrings out of guitar picks and carries a wallet made from duct tape. She wears skirts over jeans and socks that don't match. She doesn't care if she leaves the house with or without makeup. That doesn't matter much to her. She's funny in a way that most kids her age just don't get. And she's wise beyond her years.

I wrote about grudges recently, how I am a harborer of them. How they eat at me. How I can't let them go. I only wrote about a few, but there are many more. I was discussing one of them with her, because she's at that age where I feel we can talk on a more meaningful level. I explained the grudge and how I worry about it still, how I could be made to look so stupid, how I'm concerned about being able to know for sure that I'm safe from that; how I wonder if and when what I expect to happen actually will.

And this is what she said to me.

"You'll never know for sure if it will or if it won't, but you can't let that hold you back. Just let it go mom."

Ahh. Simple, yet profound.
I wanna be like her when I grow up.