We had a case of little boy bangs in need of trimming.
And a bunch of cute baby boy blonde curls.
How did this end? Business in the front, party in the back. I’m not ready to part with the curls.
“What do you think?” the guy with the scissors asked me.
I half sighed, half laughed.
“I think you did just what I asked for and now our son has a mullet!”
“It’s okay, everybody can rock a mullet until their two, you’re good.” I’m not sure how convinced he was of his own advising, but I went with it.
Yes, our son, pretty much, kind of, has a developing mullet. He has a ‘do that makes you tilt your head to the side and wonder a little bit.
And I’m okay with it.
Because the truth is, when he looks back on the pictures capturing these priceless days, he may ask what is up with his hair, and I’ll have an answer. For this is the season where I am embracing the “tween-ness.”
For him – at 20 months, he isn’t quite a full blown little boy, and no longer a full blown baby. He is a tweener. Simultaneously, he grows both fiercely independent and attached. Tonight he ran through the house on his own, only to return just as quickly to plant kisses on my face.
For me – three and half decades in – I’m finding peace with concepts of progression in motherhood and finding my path as a writer. I am less likely to require absolutes. No longer do I feel a need to constantly categorize everything in life as either good or bad. There is gray. God helps us through the gray. God’s truths are absolute, but His creation seeking them are messy, complicated, emotional beings. We do best to cling to grace during the times of gray- the times of tween-ness when we don’t quite feel we’ve arrived….anywhere. We aren’t quite ready to fully forget the past, and we aren’t quite ready to fully embrace the future. So, we sit calmly right where we are and breathe deeply and simply be. We have a 20 month old with a short straight line up front and a sporadic, joyful grouping of curls in the back, because that is where we are, right now.
It is okay if some days, we appear to be business up front and party in the back. What’s important is to know why we do what we do, why we make the decisions we make. The older I get the less I feel an automatic need to provide explanations. Certainly, on all matters of life, I would love to know what to say if and when you ask. Surely, you are certainly entitled to your opinions and comments. I may or may not agree with them. But, I do purpose to, with grace, love and humility, live 1 Peter 3:15, to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” I have no desire to shove my hope down your throat. But if/when you ask, I pray to serve it up as quickly as the hair cuttery guy served up our son’s mullet.
Hope is very powerful. Some days you may not have much, but if you can muster up some hope, you have some jingle in your pocket. Hope purposes through the gray. To be without hope is a sad and lonely place. If I could freely give any commodity, I would make hope tangible and hand it out.
Our little one has curls that sprout from the side of his head like wings. They tease you as little beings of themselves that tickle life and question whether they should really be there or not. I’m learning to extend those same kinds of wings each time I step out in my writing. Learning to fly is frightful. Perhaps we are not all meant to – perhaps, we will not know until we try.
Life will present situations where there is business up front and a party in the back. Some are easier to digest than others. You will be tempted to feel lonely and misunderstood in your mullet season. Press on, Beloved. Those curls can stay as long as you want them too.
Write To The Full 