She is Made from Stardust

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The other night, F came home from a faux campout with her Girl Scout troop; she was too young for the actual sleep over part. (Well, actually, I misplaced the permission slip to let her sleep over; and I would've had to sleep over with her because she was too young. Mom: FAIL.)

F had loads of fun and was anxiously telling me about it when she stopped mid-sentence, declaring with a gasp, 
     “MOM! I’m talking in exclamation marks! That’s when you’re excited about something!”

     ME, caught in the moment: “I LOVE exclamation marks!”

     F: “MEEEE, TOO!!”

We shared a gigantic, squeezy bonding-over-grammar hug. I’m nerd enough to admit I was extremely proud and excited that my five year old had newly discovered her love for punctuation. Part of me couldn’t help wonder if she’d end up loving semi-colons as much as I do.  I nearly shivered in anticipation.

Uh. Yeah. I’m a nerd.

As I recounted the experience to my husband later that evening, it dawned on me it wasn’t really any surprise F loves exclamation marks.

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She is fearless. All passion and intensity. She’s one of the most inquisitive children I’ve met and she doesn’t take any middle-ground-grey-around-the-edges-bullshit. She wants is straight. No tip-toeing. Black and white. 

This isn’t easy for me.  I live in the middle, in the grey, and am very comfortable exploring that. There aren’t lots of exclamation marks in my circle. Many pauses, sometimes mid-sentence, taking you in another direction. (Must be why I love the semi-colon. And parentheses and commas.)

F wants the beginning and the end. Give it to her like a dagger: quick and sharp. She respects it. Understands that way of communicating.

I’ve had to learn a lot because I’m not straight, quick, or sharp. But she needs that. It’s the world she lives in. Her world calls for extremities. For fast, confident declarations. 

For exclamation marks.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was not a man for exclamation marks. He said,

 “Cut out all these exclamation points.  An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”  

 I don’t think he and my daughter would've got on much.  There's no way he was a Scorpio. 

As much as I respect Fitzgerald, as much as I live in the world of vagueness and grey, as much as I squirm being direct and straight and super expressive, I think he’s missing out.  I think I’m missing out, too.

What’s wrong with feeling something – your own joke even – with such pleasure, such joy, that you laugh at it.  That you feel it on a cellular level.  My daughter definitely laughs at her own jokes. Tears-streaming-down-her-face, holding-her-side, belly laughs.  Why shouldn’t she?

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 She’s filled with such fire, such strength, that she shocks me. In this post, I talked about how I have never been able to express myself and be as free as she is. Not outwardly. 

You have to give me a pen and paper (or a keyboard, or a piano, or maybe some paint) for me to be bold. To express so unabashedly whatever is steaming inside.

I understand that part of her passion is because she’s a child; but I also know it’s who she is. She was born this way. She hasn’t changed. I only hopehopehope that we don’t stamp the magic out of her.

Of course F LOVES(!!!!) exclamation marks. 

It is how she lives.

It's who she is.  She is an exclamation mark.   

May she always be.