I hate this picture. I really do. It was taken over a year ago, and this is the first time I have shown it to anyone. I hated taking it, and I have hated keeping it on my phone.
But I love what it means to me.
Let me explain.
We are all about giving our kids experiences as gifts rather than tangible items. We usually give concert tickets, tickets to a major sporting event, or something like that, something we couldn’t typically afford to do for the entire family, something special for the birthday kid. Last year our oldest daughter, who was turning 14, talked all summer long about wishing we were taking a beach vacation. She went on and on about wanting to go to the beach. So when her late August birthday rolled around, I planned a trip, for just the two of us, to go to the beach for the weekend.
I had no idea how she would react. Like most parenting decisions I make, there was quite a bit of self doubt. I knew it would be a quick trip there and back, and I didn’t know how she would feel about being with just me for the weekend. But I planned the trip anyway.
Turns out, she was ecstatic about the whole thing!
That weekend, we listened to loud 80s music in the car, we shared funny stories while the water washed up on our toes, we splashed around in the pool as she made fun of the look on my face when I float on my back. I let her pick where we would eat dinner, where we would go for dessert, and what we would do next. We stayed at the beach until she was too hot, we shopped until she was ready to go, and we stayed up until she was too tired. As one of five kids, this was major!
I loved every minute of our time together, until the last morning we had on the beach. We wore our swimsuits under our clothes, but it was so overcast and breezy that it was too cool to swim. So we sat and talked. We talked about my blog and how I needed to just write and put it out there. We talked about me getting over my fears and doubts. We talked and I listened to her wisdom beyond her years.
Then she asked for my phone and said she wanted to take my picture. I thought, “Cool, we can take a selfie together and add a filter.” But that’s not what she was thinking.
She wanted me to pose looking out at the water. She wanted me to pose looking back at her. She wanted me to sit. She wanted me to stand. She wanted me to smile. She wanted me to look serious.
I was mortified. I tried at first to tell her no. I tried at first not to go along with it.
But then I remembered all of the times I have asked to take a picture of her. I don’t care what she is wearing, I don’t care if she has makeup on, I don’t care if she has a break out on her face, I don’t care if her hair isn’t fixed, I don’t care if she just woke up. To me, she is always beautiful. Always. And when she feels like she isn’t, I always think, “I just wish she could see what I see.”
And then it hit me.
When I thought about her taking my picture, I thought about how I wasn’t wearing any makeup, I thought about how my hair wasn’t fixed, I thought about how I didn’t lose 10 pounds before this trip like I wanted to, I thought about how I was wearing shorts and I never wear shorts, I thought about how my chest was sagging because I just had on my swimsuit top, I thought about how dumb I was going to look.
But that’s not what she saw.
I’d like to think she saw the face of the mom she would look up at when I would kiss her goodnight. I’d like to think my hair looked the way she has seen it the most, pulled up and all over the place. I’d like to think that when she sees my legs, she doesn’t see the blue veins or the cellulite, rather the same legs that chased her with the water hose when she was little. I’d like to think she saw a woman who she wouldn’t mind being a least a little bit like when she’s a mom.
Even if she wasn’t thinking these things (and I seriously doubt that she was), she at least saw someone worth taking a picture of. She saw a moment she wanted to capture. She saw a time she wanted to remember.
I loved our weekend at the beach and I loved the one-on-one time I got to spend with her. I loved listening to her wise words and I loved just learning from her. I loved watching her do flips in the sand and I loved her laugh when her ice cream melted down her hand.
And I loved the reminder she left for me. The truth is, she reminded me to just be her mom.
I still hate the pictures she took that day, but I keep them and I think about them and I look at them. The truth is, it is the reminder I need to be the person she sees.
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