Bad Posture

I grew up hunched over, like a question mark. 

Baked in uncertainty. 

The tiniest hint of a smile, with vacant eyes.

My mother was an exclamation point, sharp, relentless and unyielding. She would pierce me anytime I tried to stand up tall. 

You find it endearing when a child walks for the first time, looking for your eyes. "Am I doing it right mama?" they seem to ask. 

But I never want my kids to walk through life with their heads backward, searching for my approval. 

Instead I want them to look inwards, ask themselves... what is my truth? What do I want to do? 

And forge their own path, not try to rewrite my own. 

It may be out of left field, and this is the difficult part, it may be the most outrageous idea you'd ever heard. 

But it least it were true. 

I believe the inner self cannot lie. 

Even if they miss the mark, which, of course they will. At least they're aiming in the right direction.