Funny how something small can get you thinking big :)

So I just started reading this book, "Radical Acceptance", and I came upon this short passage that really spoke to me, so I figured I'd share :)

“In their book Stories of the Spirit, Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman tell this story: A family went out to a restaurant for dinner. When the waitress arrived, the parent gave their orders. Immediately, the five-year-old daughter piped up with her own: ‘I’ll have a hot dog, french fries, and a Coke.’ ‘Oh no you won’t, interjected the dad and turning to the waitress he said, ‘She’ll have meat loaf, mashed potatoes, milk.’ Looking at the child with a smile, the waitress said, ‘So, hon, what do want on that hot dog?’ When she left, the family sat stunned and silent. A few moments later the little girl, eyes shining, said, ‘She thinks I’m real.’

"She thinks I'm real." That really touched me. A simple little story and an honest thought from a young child was enough to totally bring me down to reality again. A reminder of what's important to me when it comes to raising my son.

These past couple of years I've felt burdened under the weight of second guessing myself and wondering if I should be trying harder to raise my son in a way that is acceptable to society as a whole. Get him marching in line to the beat of everyone else's drummer so life will be easier for him... so he's not so different. :/ Not long ago I gagged at the thought of conformity, yet here I am getting older and finding myself fitting more and more into the mold than I'd like to and worst of all trying to squeeze my son in there with me.

This isn't where I want to be and it isn't where I belong! And it sure isn't what I want for my son! Of course I want life to be easy for him but life isn't always easy. It's hard to be yourself sometimes, but isn't that the most important thing after all?

I guess what it all comes down to in the end, is that all I want is for my son to be happy, and for him to feel like he is real. More than that, I want him to know that I “think he is real” no matter what he does in life.