I was at my friend’s house the other day sitting on a dilapidated plastic chair she’d offered me. I didn’t complain. I love my friend hard enough that her house is my house. You never complain about your house. Where’s the fun in that, right?
As she hummed around the house, her little girl was beside me, playing with the legs of the chair I was sitting on. I watched her curious big eyes looking up at me as she giggled animatedly. It didn’t bother me that she was playing around me and with something I was using. The more comfortable a child is around you, a grownup, the more confident they grow to be.
Side note; don’t be barking at your children all the time or stopping them from having a little fun around you. Be their safe space. God knows, this generation needs that. She went from playing with the legs of my chair and suddenly my shoes were more interesting to her. They were cushioned crocs that seemed so gigantic in her tiny hands. I took them off and let her have them.
I watched to see what she’d use them for. She didn’t throw them far into the house. No. She didn’t even put her hands through them either. Instead she put her tiny bun-like feet into them. I cackled a bit, afraid I might cause her to stumble over them and stop whatever plan she had in mind.
When pushed her feet inside, she looked up at me with a question dancing in her wide eyes, ‘can I?’ I nodded. Then it began. Her own small circus show. She moved and tripped. Moved some more and tripped again. I didn’t laugh at her. She wasn’t scared either. She kept going unbothered.
Every time she tripped. She tried again. Entering her feet into the right croc sandal each time. I was fascinated by her and the action she was engaged in. With the way time flew, I was sure tripping wouldn’t be a problem for her soon enough. The sandals will fit soon and her confidence will be through the roof because she’d have done it before and made it out alive.
Whenever you trip, do you stop trying whatever it is on? Do you talk yourself out of things because you tripped a few times at the start of things? Teach yourself how to trip until it fits. Learn how to stick with things until they work out because I guarantee you they will. But if you keep quitting every time you trip, you will never find out if the sandals will fit you eventually. The truth is, if you stay long enough and give yourself grace to grow, they always fit. You grow into them.
Sometimes all you need is someone ahead to stand on the sidelines while you trip a few times so that you are confident that if they could do it, you can too. I didn’t start fitting in those big crocs as a little girl. I grew into them. For the young girl, watching me wear them gave her the confidence that she could do it too. It didn’t mean she was ready for it or that they’d fit immediately.
What am I saying to you? There’s someone who’s been where you want to be before. They have tripped a few times and made it out in one piece. Those are the people you need to stand out too. To fit in your own sandal crocs. Find them.
