Of Gym Shorts and Harper

Can we talk about this girl for a minute?

I have to start by telling you about a pair of gym shorts. They were dark blue with orange letters, and everyone received a pair once they entered high school.

I couldn’t wait to get mine and wear them.

I wanted to own a pair of these shorts since my elementary school days when I saw the high school girls wearing them in the summer over bathing suits and flip flops, and those chunky white braided bracelets you get in Florida over Spring Break.

I wore them for gym (obviously), and for Drill Team practices.  I threw them on summer nights after spending the day at the beach or the pool.  I even took them to college with me despite my mom begging me not too because they “were hanging together by a thread.”  I once unpacked my suitcase to find the shorts with a band-aid on them trying to conceal a rather large tear.

I thought fondly of my shorts when I realized with relief that someone else understands the comfort that is found in strange things.   Around the time Harper was 14 or 15 months old, she put on a pair of pink crocs and they became her shoe of choice for several months to come.  It didn’t matter if it was raining, snowing, or we were going to church.  She was going to wear those shoes.

I can make guesses as to why she loved those shoes so much, and they probably would be along the same lines as why I loved my gym shorts.  She’d just begun to walk, and perhaps those shoes represented freedom, or accomplishment, or being a big girl.  But what I took a secret delight in was knowing that there is another person in the world who has her own ideas about something and will not stop until those ideas are a reality.  However strange they may be.

If Hadley teaches me the possibilities the world holds, the friendliness there is in it, the joy that can be found in walking out the door without a plan, then Harper is my kindred spirit.  Harper and I, we are not flexible.  We have an agenda.  We cry and scream at the drop of a hat.  We like routine.  We learn things slowly, savoring skills until we have them just right.

These traits sometimes make life difficult on people like me and Harper, as well others who come into contact with us.  I’m not sure a day in my 36 years has gone by that I haven’t wondered why I can’t be more flexible, why it takes me so long to make friends, why I can’t learn things quickly, why I watch a situation for long periods of time until I think about taking action.

These traits can be wonderful, too.  There is an excitement in knowing exactly what it is you want to do with your life – even if it’s something simple like wearing a pink pair of shoes or a pair of gym shorts. There is a confidence in understanding what it is that makes you happy – whether it’s staying up late into the night singing songs to your stuffed animals or struggling with a bunch of words until you think you have them just right.

And when we make a friend, there is a peace in knowing that this friend loves you not despite your quirks, but because of them.

Harper turns three on November 9, and for three years I have watched bits of my personality come out in my wiggly string bean of a daughter.  I want her to know the joy I have in seeing proof that perhaps God thinks I’m alright, so He created someone else like me.  Not only that, He let me help. And most of all, He wants people like me and Harper – as stubborn mules as we might be – to be in His world.

I want her to know that I will help her make a plan, a list, or a schedule when she is overwhelmed with the possibilities or responsibilities in her life.  I’m good at making plans and lists and schedules.

I also want her to know, though, that being around someone who can show you the possibilities the world holds, the friendliness there is in it, the joy that can be found in walking out the door without a plan, helps us forget about things like our pink shoes and blue gym shorts.

Not that these things aren’t important.  It’s just nice to be around people who show us the other parts of a wardrobe that are equally fantastic.

 

Happy Third Birthday to my Harper Anne.  You are hilarious and strong – willed.

Iron sharpens iron, babe.