WARNING: I get preachy at the end.
Wednesday morning, at approximately 4:40 am, my bedroom door creaked open, with a little girl standing tenatively in the darkness.
"Are you okay?" I asked her.
"My braces broke and it hurts," she said.
So we walk together to the bright lights of the bathroom, and upon inspection, her quad helix had, in fact, pulled apart. I wrangle one sloppy spitty mouthpiece into submission and send mini-me back to bed.
After coffee, I call the orthodontist for an on-call appointment, which won't be available until Friday.
And you know what's fun about going to the orthodontist? Our orthodontist is 99 miles away, in Bismarck. Ah.... Life in a northern town. So to go have the orthodontist snap it back into place just like I did, but with tools, we pretty much have to make a day trip out of it.
Which is fine because Bismarck has way better shopping, right?
So mini me and I get checked out of school Friday and head to the city! We get her appliance fixed and do a little clothes shopping (TJMaxx! I got a wind jacket and a new Champion sports bra and Katie got some cute shirts) and then we went to our most favorite place in the entire 100 mile area.... Barnes and Noble.
Bookworms.
I could spend hours and hours and a gajillion dollars. We even asked ourselves "What are we doing here? We have books at home that haven't even been read yet." So we limited ourselves to just one book each and headed to the cafe to enjoy a little afternoon treat.
It's all women in the cafe, and I smile, thinking that this is quite lovely.
We gather our parcels and goodies and sit next to some young-ish girls. They appear to be high schoolers or maybe young collegiates. They have their backpacks and I assume they have a study group going. Katie and I sit, barely have time to take our coats off before these young ladies start a high pitch, high shrieking giggling conversation about a boy.
"ohmygod, we should have a secret password!"
"tee hee hee, CONDOMS!"
"ha ha, yeah, CONDOMS."
"ohmygod, I so need to go get some CONDOMS."
"hee hee hee."
Me: Katie, grab your stuff, we are changing tables.
I tried to grab another table in what appeared to be a quiet corner. I hoped we would be far enough away from the condom girls that we wouldn't have to hear much more of their conversation.
So Katie and I once more resume nibbling on our scones and cookies and cocoa and latte. As a silence fell over our table, the conversation from the ladies next to us perks up.
They are trading tips on the best diet pills. Perfectly healthy, blond haired blue eyed women. One maybe a little too skinny. She, who I will now refer to as skeleton lady, proceeds to describe how she crushes up Pamprin every day into her orange juice to fight the bloat so she doesn't gain "not one single ounce."
I look over at my nine year old who is now just staring at her cookie.
*facepalm*
Really, ladies?
Is this really the kind of legacies you want to leave in the world? Are these really the stereotypes you want to perpetuate?
Is this really how we talk to one another?
Maybe you don't talk to your daughter about condoms and maybe you dont talk to your daughter about diet pills. But does that make it okay to talk to your friends that way? Don't we have more to offer one another?
So I grab a bite of Katie's cookie, smearing chocolate on my lips and making her giggle and hurry up and finish it before I eat more of it.
My daughter is a really neat kid. She knows more of the characters in the Justice League than I do. She loves Paramore. She loves her ballet and hip hop classes. She wants a German Shephard and a Papillion and a Yorkie and maybe a Chihuahua. And sometimes, she comes out and runs 5Ks with me. "They are so fun!" she exclaims. She runs a bit, walks a bit. She cheers for everyone and when she comes to the finish line, she has quite a few cheerleaders of her own.
I hope and pray and hope and pray that I give my daughter a better legacy than overly sexual flirtation or an unhealthy body image.
I hope that what I get out of running- grit, determination, a kind discipline, strength - are the kind of legacies that I can pass on. And not just to her.
I hope that we, as women, can share in each other's successes, in each other's journeys, in each other's races, cheering each other on along the way and at the finish. I hope we can look at the long roads ahead and know we have what it takes to put one foot in front of the other. I hope that we can appreciate our thunder thighs when we know the mileage they have carried. I hope we can admire our hips, when we know the loads they have weighed. Wherever your challenges in life may be, may you have good strong friends who are there to encourage and lift you up.
I want that to be my legacy for my daughter, and I hope she has friends that are the same way.
I think we are off to a good start. She browsed books like "The Boy on Cinnamon Street" and she thought about picking up "Alice in Wonderland." Her final selection. "Journey to the Center of the Earth " by Jules Verne.
Please God, let her be this awesome as she grows up and may she never ingest a diet pill or declare her need for condoms in the middle of a cafe.
Long Run day tomorrow, looking forward to seeing my amazing strong friends tomorrow!
~Jen
