Why It's Okay to Be Afraid

When I picked up my daughter from preschool today, her hair was all askew and she had loops of hair pulled out of her pigtails. I immediately knew that something had made her nervous or upset; pulling at her hair is one of the way she copes. Her teacher told me that they had read a book and some of the images had scared her. As soon as this was brought up, my daughter burst into tears and we had to go to a corner and calm down before we left.

I kind of hate Halloween. I like candy and I like cute costumes, but I hate the fear and gore and making light of horrible ways to die. I can't even take my little girls to get the mail right now because the house next to the mailboxes is decorated too scary. I guess if you're into that fear thing you can do it, but keep it to yourself please. I really hate it when people (often their own parents or family members) think it's funny to scare small children with masks or scary images at Halloween. And there's a weird sense of pride in not being scared of frightening things.

But one of the things I told my daughter when we came home is that it's okay to be scared--and when we are, we don't have to stay or keep looking at whatever is making us afraid. It's okay to be afraid: sometimes it's the spirit telling us that something is wrong, and we should never ignore that spirit. It's okay to be afraid: my daughter for one, is a sensitive soul and far from wanting to squelch that, I want to help her cultivate it. As she grows older, the things that scare her simply because she doesn't understand them will diminish. But I don't want her to lose the sensitivity that will help her be a compassionate human being. It's okay to be afraid: You don't have to pretend to like the gross or scary things that come around at Halloween just because a few people do and many people pretend to. I wish my teenage self had stood up for herself and refused to go to the haunted house that made her physically nauseous, but I'm glad that my young adult self finally had the sense to not care if everyone else was going and I was going to miss out on a good time. Because that's not my version of a good time.

Okay, rant over. Now for a sweet picture from last year of the fun part of Halloween. The cutest little Snoopy and Woodstock you've ever seen:

Unexpectedly Creative

I've never thought of myself as very creative. I'm not artistic--even my stick drawings are pretty pitiful. I don't sew, I'm not good at interior decorating, and I've never been much of a crafter. I write, but I'm not a fiction writer.

But as I spend more time as a stay at home mom, I do more and more things that might be considered creative (if you leave traditional art expressions out of it). I like to try new recipes (hey, if you have to make and eat dinner every night, you might as well have fun with it). I've even gotten to the point where I not only tweak recipes, but I often even cook without a recipe at all. I scrapbook. Though my method feels more like organizing pictures, I am creating something for my daughters to see later.

And after talking to my mom last night about my daughters' Halloween costumes (pictured above), I realized that I am one of those moms who made their kids' costumes. Wait, what? So it's not elaborate and detailed and not a bit of it was sewn (Woodstock's costume was made by cutting out felt feathers and taping them with fabric fuse stuff to a onesie), but their costumes were homemade. And cost less than $5 each.

This made me think of a quote about creating something and how it makes us happy:

“Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter. … Try to see how many smiles you can create, write a letter of appreciation, learn a new skill, identify a space and beautify it. … Don’t let fear of failure discourage you. Don’t let the voice of critics paralyze you—whether this voice comes from the outside or the inside.” - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Creating something, a happy (if messy) home, dinner, or whatever is part of what keeps me sane as I spend my days at home. I'm even making some homemade Christmas gifts. My ten years younger self wouldn't recognize me. But that's a good thing.