T30P week 6

Have you ever wished you were a kid again? Playful, sincere, fearless in opening your heart, loving and ready to forgive? I do. As far as I can recall there is nothing huge that requires my forgiveness, but I still wish I had the pure little heart of when I was little.

When I was 9 years old my family moved to another city. A lady I will call Lola came over to our house to welcome us. She was and still is one of the nicest people I have ever met. As soon as she looked at me she asked: “How old are you?” “Nine” – I answered in a very shy voice. “Really? I have a daughter with your age! You guys should get together to play sometime.”I will call her daughter Halle.

Later she said her daughter Halle had a friend that lived close to our house, Kate, and for a nine years old girl that has moved to a new city and hadn’t met any friends yet, I was very excited to meet them.

My mom decided to go to Kate’s house and bring me with her, so I could meet a new friend and my mom could meet more people in our neighborhood.

Once we got there Leah (Kate’s mom), opened her door: “Can I help you?” – She asked.

My mom explained she has just met Lola and was out and about meeting some new people. Leah let us in. The conversation felt awkward and I didn’t want to be there anymore and Leah seemed preoccupied in going back to do whatever she was doing before we got there.

My mom tried to cut short the conversation and said: Lola mentioned you have a daughter, I was hoping my daughter could get to know her so they could become friends.

Leah’s answered loud and clear: “My daughter already has a friend, they get along really well.”

My mom replied: “But, you know, they could get together to play one of these days”

“No, that’s ok, my daughter already has a friend” – was Leah’s final answer.

A couple days later Lola showed up in my house with Halle asking if I wanted to come over to play, I ran to my bedroom to get unmatching socks and my tennis shoes. Halle and I had a lot of things in common and she was also just as nice as her mother, and that after that we got together to play daily.

A couple weeks passed and I again going to Halle’s house to play. This time Kate was there. I could tell she was a little uncomfortable in the beginning to have a third person playing with them in the yard, but it didn’t last long. For many consecutive days we played to together, danced together, attempted to cook together and created some of my greatest childhood memories.

One day, Kate and I did a little prank to Halle, it was as silly as 9 year old can be, but we fell on the floor laughing hysterically. Once we were able to breathe again and the loud sound of laughter turned into happy silence Kate said one of the most painful phrases I have heard in my life: “Juliana, my mom told me I have to stop being your friend  because your are breaking my friendship with Halle. But I don’t want to”.  For the rest of the evening I tried really hard to have fun. I walked home while was getting dark, looking down on my feet, questioning why her mom did not like me. I didn’t feel anger. I didn’t feel mad. All I could think was: Why?

From that day on every time I saw Leah I brought her flowers from my garden and cards I had made myself, and every single time she politely received them, which made me believe that now she liked me.

When mother’s day was coming up a group of girls were getting ready to do a special dance for a talent show. It was supposed to be a big surprise. They told us to bring a white dress and get ready in one of the rooms. The room had about 12 girls and the only mom present was Leah. I couldn’t wait for the talent show to start. I had my dress on and had brushed my curls for the big performance. While I was doing a last minute practice with another friend Leah came towards me with the hair brush: “Please brush this hair of yours”, and as she continued to fluff her daughter’s dress she continued: “Juliana’s hair always looks like a mess”.

I slowly stopped dancing and with the hair brush in my hands and trying to make myself invisible I hid myself in the back of the door and brushed my hair incessantly wishing my mom was there to help me. But she wasn’t, and I wanted my hair to be a surprise for her. 

A few minutes later it was time to perform and I was happy, giggly and did not care for what has just happened. I kept picking flowers and making cards for Leah, this time I wasn’t trying to make her like me, I just had learned I really liked making cards and giving people flowers and also did it for Lola and many other people. My heart simply had no room in it to dislike Leah or be mad at her.

This week something similar happened to my daughter. We invited a little friend to play with her and a couple hours later I hear the little girl screaming: “I don’t want to be your friend!” That phrase hurt me like a knife. My daughter’s friend is a sweetheart and I know she doesn’t really understand what she said, but what moved me was to see how happy my daughter was to see her a couple days later.

The decision and effort I want to make is to have a heart so full of love and happiness that there’s no room for heartache or sorrow, just like a child’s heart.

I believe is important to stand for ourselves, I think we human beings learn how to do that with time, but we also forget how to forget and forgive quickly. Holding a grudge turns into poison that isn’t worth having.

This week I also I read for the 2^nd time the book “Men are from March and Women are from Venus”. The first time I read it I was 16 years old and now that I’m a wife the book is even funnier.

 I also worked on making our “engagement cake”. On our engagement party we ordered a Passion Fruit and Chocolate Mousse Cake that was simply divine. My husband has been asking me to learn how to make it since that day. And Today I was the day I made his dream come true

Week 6 Conclusion: Our heart is too little to fill up with anything that doesn’t make us giggle.