Yesterday I blogged about telling our life stories to family. Because I had been thinking about that, something in the novel I'm currently reading really jumped out at me.
I'm reading The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. In the first chapter, one of the two sisters around whose lives this fictional book revolves, says of the mother her son knows, "He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known."
Fascinating, I think. Truly, our children typically know only a small part of who we really are. They know a different person from the one our closest and dearest friends know. A different person from the one our siblings know.
That's as it should be, particularly when our children are young. We don't necessarily need them to know some of the shenanigans we pulled when we were young!
But do you ever wish, as you get older, that your children (and/or grandchildren) knew a little more about your deepest values, passions and thoughts? Would you like them to know more about you? If you answer "yes" to that, find some ways that you can reveal more of yourself. It may even mean dropping some masks or armor. Are you ready to do that?
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