joie de vivre with metaphors
Duchess turns 8 tomorrow. She's enormously happy. She's confident, joyful, and sure of her competence and success. She's just devouring her life right now. I don't really know what to make of it - I can't remember ever feeling the kind of vivid enthusiasm that just pours out of Duchess these days.* I occasionally wrestle with the vicious urge to burst her bubble (but I do fight that urge, I do), and more often I feel sad about her inevitable loss of this amazing faith in the world and in herself. It's a little frivolous to feel sad about the puncturing of her faith, when she's one of the luckiest people ever to be alive, and the thing that happens to kids, especially girls, as they approach adolescence and the confidence trickles away, isn't exactly a tragedy, being as she'll still be alive and not worrying about hunger and homelessness and violence. But it's still sad.
However, it's not actually about me and what I make of it. What it is is awesome. Between this developmental stage and her essential temperament, she'll try anything, and soak up as much as she can. She's open to new things, she's flexible about changing her mind, and she thinks everything is interesting. She'll talk to anybody, and she'll give anybody the benefit of the doubt. She's also ethical and sensitive to other people, and she's generous about laughing at anybody's jokes. She's a loyal friend and a conscientious student. Everything she does, she does largely - smiling, laughing, talking, crying, stomping, running, reading (no almost-eight-year-old in the history of the world has ever sprawled on a couch the way this one can). That's Duchess, on the cusp of her ninth year, cracking open the oystershell, seizing the day, gathering rosebuds, etc. She's a dazzling sight.
*I don't mean that she's particularly delightful to live with right now - she's snotty and whiny, she's loud and irritating, she occasionally throws ridiculous tantrums, and she's horrible to her sister (who is horrible right back) - but she does it all with zest. Even the tantrums seem awfully zesty.
However, it's not actually about me and what I make of it. What it is is awesome. Between this developmental stage and her essential temperament, she'll try anything, and soak up as much as she can. She's open to new things, she's flexible about changing her mind, and she thinks everything is interesting. She'll talk to anybody, and she'll give anybody the benefit of the doubt. She's also ethical and sensitive to other people, and she's generous about laughing at anybody's jokes. She's a loyal friend and a conscientious student. Everything she does, she does largely - smiling, laughing, talking, crying, stomping, running, reading (no almost-eight-year-old in the history of the world has ever sprawled on a couch the way this one can). That's Duchess, on the cusp of her ninth year, cracking open the oystershell, seizing the day, gathering rosebuds, etc. She's a dazzling sight.
*I don't mean that she's particularly delightful to live with right now - she's snotty and whiny, she's loud and irritating, she occasionally throws ridiculous tantrums, and she's horrible to her sister (who is horrible right back) - but she does it all with zest. Even the tantrums seem awfully zesty.
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