Do What Your Brave Is
As Rose turns 13, I stumble across a video they secretly recorded on my phone when they were five. “At nighttime, Mommy and Daddy send all of my videos and my singing to all of you. So I hope you enjoy it. If you see me singing about braveness, and it’s really long and it’s a little dark, that’s really me telling you what you can do to do what your brave is. So you have to watch that one and you have to show that to other people, ok, even other kids.” When I show it to Rose now: “What does that even mean?” How quickly we abandon our childhoods. I spent most of my youth running away from mine, rushing to grow up. Never wanting to appear silly or frivolous or naïve. At 10, sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table, writing a letter of campaign advice to President Carter after Kennedy’s DNC scare. At 12, reading business and church growth books from my dad’s bookshelves. At 14, writing a paper on the works of Arthur Miller like I had a clue. At 16, as president of FBLA, taking over a local mini-golf course business like a little Alex P. Keaton. By 17, deep into existentialists — Kierkegaard, Sartre, Rimbaud. Ready to rule the world or some little corner of it. And then I spent decades trying to recapture the youth I abandoned. I’m still recapturing. It takes a long time. It’s a little dark. And it calls for me to do what my brave is.
If this resonates, I’d love to hear from you. A comment, a share, or even just a like goes a long way. Writing into the void is its own practice, but knowing the work lands makes it easier to keep showing up.