Pretend

My heart has two metal valves and a pacemaker.  Nothing man can do to me physically can hurt as much as seeing my children in pain.   Yesterday, I was telling my youngest daughter about an expression, “fake it until you make it”.  We were talking about making friends.  She is lonely and especially feels alone at school.  It is agonizing to watch her in pain and, I think doubly so, because I was bullied as a child.  On some level, I am reliving the cruelty I endured as a teenager.  I don’t want to make this situation about me.  It is about her.  And pain.  And acceptance.  She tells me that she doesn’t fit in anywhere.  She doesn’t fit in at school, in the school activities, in the horrible survival of the fittest lunch hour.    And here I am telling her to be a friend, reach out to others, fake it until you make it.   She’s had some wonderful achievements so far this school year. She should be on top of the world.  Instead, she is climbing up a slippery ladder which whispers, “You can’t make it!”  Am I teaching her to pretend – to be the fake?  Plastic people bifurcate themselves – split into two persons in order to present themselves to the world outside and to themselves inside.  How Lord, do I communicate that she is beautiful and a hand-crafted, fully loved child of the King.  She is perfect the way you created her.   Motherhood really hurts.  And stinks.