This was a picture of half of my living room as we prepared for a huge neighborhood yard sale a few weeks ago. Yep preparing for the event our house turned into a den of hoarders.
Scott and I are currently on a quest to fall back in love with our house (since its lots cheaper than moving). While we've been doing the "we've had no money" march during the past few years we've been neglecting our house. So we finally fixed the hole in the kitchen ceiling and all pieces of the bathroom upstairs that caused the leak/hole in the first place. We paid repair men to fix our leaky fridge. And we've been cleaning out all the stuff we no longer need. A neighbor scheduled a yard sale for the street and it was a great motivator. Not only would we not have to take 10+ trips to the DI, but we made a little bit of money too.
In our search through the basement full of boxes we found many that were full of items from our childhoods that had been passed onto us by our parents but we'd hadn't look at since. We sorted through old school paperwork, mission letters, and baby boxes. As the date of the yard sale came closer we had to switch our focus to the stuff other people might want to buy and away from the stuff that was "just" memories.
With the kids back in school I been able to open up some of the boxes of memories and began the process of deciding which were worth keeping. I'm currently working my way though a bunch of mix tapes I recorded for myself off of the radio. It's been fun because not only did I make a list of songs on the tape, but I also wrote down the year it was recorded and the radio station I was listening to at the time.
Technology has totally spoiled us, in fact my kids rarely even let us listen to the radio, even in the car. It's static-y and sometimes even switches to a different station as we drive. These tapes are full of that. There were some from my BFF growing up that not only had songs but also her talking about what had happened that year (I'm keeping those). It has been an amazing trip down memory lane. It has also been eye opening in a way I never expected.
Like many kids my biggest desire through middle school and high school was to fit in. I wanted to be accepted. It didn't matter if I had to listen to music I didn't love, attend school clubs that weren't my favorite, or hid things about myself from other people. If my "friends" were doing it I was too, within reason I still had my standards.
As I've grown up and watched my own kids start to struggle with this same thing, I've had the blessing of reconnecting with some old friends on Facebook. Seeing old pictures posted and getting a peek at who those people have become is so fun. It has been a good case study of life with which people I still feel connected to, who I still have the most in common with. It probably won't surprise you to know, it isn't those friends I tried to change myself for. It is the ones who accepted me for who I already was.
Zac has one year of elementary school left before you heads to the middle school jungle. It is my one desire to give him confidence in himself. I don't just want him to stand up for himself to bullies, but I want him to know Zac is special. He doesn't have to dress different, talk different, or be different to have friends. My memory is that during those years I kind of gave up on myself, but listening to the music I had recorded, has let me see what actually happened.
My public face may have been desperation to fit in, my private face still liked what she liked. On those tapes are hard rock, alternative, country, oldies, kids songs, funny ads, and more. It is a catalog of what it felt like to be me. I could be that person at home because I had a family (and a few really great friends) who loved me on the inside and not for what I looked like.
All week as I listened to those tapes, I kept going back to my favorite scene from The House Bunny. At the end of the film, the Playboy Bunny turned loving house mother gives a speech to try to save her Sorority House of misfit girls from being taken over by another house. It explains what I felt best.
"I do know that one day, when your looks are gone, if everything you have is based on looks, well, then you've got nothing. You need your friends and your family by your side, to love you for who you are, not what you look like. At the Zeta house, our new motto is 'Be who you are.' Because we're a family. We're a family that loves you on the inside."
May my children, you, and even I remember that. Find friends that let you be who you are and that love you for you you are on the inside. Don't ever be afraid to be who YOU are.
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