Nine.
Nine.
Does this mean your childhood is already halfway over? That thought is somehow equal parts inevitable and incomprehensible.
In some ways — very much by design on your part, and in spite of any effort on mine — you already feel like a teenager. You play Fortnite (that is ALL on your father) and cuss (okay that one’s probably on me) and are developing a somewhat serious online shopping habit (also me).
I think of all those months I coached you, implored you, to just say ‘mama’ and it feels like yesterday. Today you called me ‘bruh.’
You say all kinds of made-up, Gen Alpha things to me that I have to pretend I understand, even though they aren’t even real words, just so you’ll keep telling me all the things.
And for now, you do. You still tell me every thought you think. In the car, after lights out, on bike rides and without hesitation. You tell me so much, and it’s like catching a bubble in my palm. So beautifully simple and terrifyingly fragile.
Mostly you tell me the little things, the daily things, the fleeting things. But sometimes you talk through the process of growing up and figuring this big world out.
And you tell me about your feelings. How big and sometimes heavy they can be.
You feel so deeply and I know sometimes — a lot of the time — you wish you didn’t. It still feels uncontrollable to you, and that feels bad. Scary. Embarrassing.
Those feelings are what make you human, and what make you you. Extraordinary, extra special you. Those feelings are what will push you forward, wherever you’re pointed. You just have to make up your mind and set your feet.
This world would undoubtedly be less volatile if there were less deeply feeling people in it. If we were led by the apathetic, the uninvolved. But we’re not. We’re led by people just like you, with big emotions and strong opinions on full display. We see what happens when deeply feeling adults refuse to regulate their behaviors, or when they haven’t grasped (or don’t care to) the effects of their rampages. It’s scary, I know. I know that’s not how you want to look to the world, or exist in it.
But we can also see deep feelings become the very best things the world has to offer: the art, the music, the books (oh, son, the books) that make us soar, make us sing, leave us swimming in emotion. Invention and creativity cannot come from anywhere other than that deep pool.
Because to create the best things, you can’t just think. You can’t just obey. You have to feel your way through. Artists do it, sure, but so do teachers. Doctors. Engineers and architects. Police officers, parents, presidents of countries and PTOs.
These are people with deep feelings. They carry on with the weight of emotions beyond anything that should be sustainable. And yet, they do. We do. We carry it. It’s heavy. And you’ve already learned that, in your heart and in your always-spinning head, you carry a heavier load than some others.
I promise you, my love, that weight will not crush you. Please keep trusting me, as you learn to trust yourself. Because in that little body of yours there is more than sadness, or anger, or frustration.
There is love that positively oozes out of you. Joy at life. Empathy and kindness and curiosity — all these things are your feelings, too.
The lows will be harder, it’s true. The valleys kind of suck and there’s no way around them, at least no way I’ve yet found.
But the valleys weren’t designed to hold you.
The mountains were.
That’s where you’re meant to be. Right there at the top. Big ideas and big dreams and, yes, big feelings, are the only way up.
Hail to you, my mountain climber.
How I love you, Emmett James.
Nine.
Does this mean your childhood is already halfway over? That thought is somehow equal parts inevitable and incomprehensible.
In some ways — very much by design on your part, and in spite of any effort on mine — you already feel like a teenager. You play Fortnite (that is ALL on your father) and cuss (okay that one’s probably on me) and are developing a somewhat serious online shopping habit (also me).
I think of all those months I coached you, implored you, to just say ‘mama’ and it feels like yesterday. Today you called me ‘bruh.’
You say all kinds of made-up, Gen Alpha things to me that I have to pretend I understand, even though they aren’t even real words, just so you’ll keep telling me all the things.
And for now, you do. You still tell me every thought you think. In the car, after lights out, on bike rides and without hesitation. You tell me so much, and it’s like catching a bubble in my palm. So beautifully simple and terrifyingly fragile.
Mostly you tell me the little things, the daily things, the fleeting things. But sometimes you talk through the process of growing up and figuring this big world out.
And you tell me about your feelings. How big and sometimes heavy they can be.
You feel so deeply and I know sometimes — a lot of the time — you wish you didn’t. It still feels uncontrollable to you, and that feels bad. Scary. Embarrassing.
Those feelings are what make you human, and what make you you. Extraordinary, extra special you. Those feelings are what will push you forward, wherever you’re pointed. You just have to make up your mind and set your feet.
This world would undoubtedly be less volatile if there were less deeply feeling people in it. If we were led by the apathetic, the uninvolved. But we’re not. We’re led by people just like you, with big emotions and strong opinions on full display. We see what happens when deeply feeling adults refuse to regulate their behaviors, or when they haven’t grasped (or don’t care to) the effects of their rampages. It’s scary, I know. I know that’s not how you want to look to the world, or exist in it.
But we can also see deep feelings become the very best things the world has to offer: the art, the music, the books (oh, son, the books) that make us soar, make us sing, leave us swimming in emotion. Invention and creativity cannot come from anywhere other than that deep pool.
Because to create the best things, you can’t just think. You can’t just obey. You have to feel your way through. Artists do it, sure, but so do teachers. Doctors. Engineers and architects. Police officers, parents, presidents of countries and PTOs.
These are people with deep feelings. They carry on with the weight of emotions beyond anything that should be sustainable. And yet, they do. We do. We carry it. It’s heavy. And you’ve already learned that, in your heart and in your always-spinning head, you carry a heavier load than some others.
I promise you, my love, that weight will not crush you. Please keep trusting me, as you learn to trust yourself. Because in that little body of yours there is more than sadness, or anger, or frustration.
There is love that positively oozes out of you. Joy at life. Empathy and kindness and curiosity — all these things are your feelings, too.
The lows will be harder, it’s true. The valleys kind of suck and there’s no way around them, at least no way I’ve yet found.
But the valleys weren’t designed to hold you.
The mountains were.
That’s where you’re meant to be. Right there at the top. Big ideas and big dreams and, yes, big feelings, are the only way up.
Hail to you, my mountain climber.
How I love you, Emmett James.
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