8 years old.

I was eight years old, I think, when I received an award of achievement. Only one person per grade got this award and I was chosen for the third grade. We were even honored outside of school hours in the evening. IN THE EVENING! We got to invite our families and my memories of that night are fuzzy, but I remember people were dressed up.

We were supposed to introduce our families and I remember beginning to get nervous when it was coming around to my turn. And I remember exactly why. I was a child who embarrassed easily and my family was just my mom and my sister. From what I can remember, or what my eight year old mind could see, was that we were the only family without a dad. Without two parents. So when only my mom and sister stood up I remember wanting that moment to hurry up and be over. For years I thought it was embarrassment but really is it was one of my first, solid memories of shame. I don't remember anything else about that night, why we were there, what we ate, or event exactly what the award was for. I just remember wanting to be invisible.

You can imagine how excited I was for my own daughter, prior to last year, being a little girl who would grow up with both parents in the home. The eight year old in me was absolutely over the moon and wanted to have a dance party over it. I did it. She wasn't going to grow up in a single parent household. She wasn't going to feel those feelings of shame and embarrassment. I mean, sure, there are far more single parent households now than in the 80s, but that's not what I wanted for my daughter. I wanted more for her. I would watch her with her father and feel relief. She was whole. And she'd be well adjusted. And she wouldn't do drugs. And she'd become president or something.

My daughter is eight now. And she embarrasses easily just like I did. The eight year old in me and the adult me are both broken-hearted over our dream for her. Out of everything that came from the divorce, what it would do to her was the most gut wrenching. I watched her hurt and confusion and longing. I understood all of it. And I couldn't stop any of it.

I didn't want this for her, dammit. 

I recently watched a talk by Glennon Doyle where she spoke about how it's not our job as parents to protect our kids from pain and that's where we have things mixed up. It's the pain and feeling it and charging through it that builds our children into who they are meant to be. 

So I had to surrender to this:

Even though I don't understand it, even though I don't like it, even though I wanted to protect her from it, even though I didn't want this for her...this is part of her story now. She'll have her own story to tell when she's all grown up and talks about when she was eight. This will shape who she is. And, God, my biggest fear is that this would change who she is and who she was meant to be. 

Who she would have been had this past year not happened to her.

That thought draws blood. It's crushing.

But if I can just get outside of myself, my own eight year old shame, and all the things I wanted for her, and how much I want to protect her from the pain, I'll realize that it's not about who she would have been. It's about who she is meant to be. This is now her story.

And one day she'll tell it.