Unleash your individuality

My wife Leona and I were resting at the living quarters at the Motel a couple years ago while the girls were out of sight and to be truthful out of mind. It is a rarity in our home to have moments of silence due to Lilly’s excessive storytelling and Riyann’s adventuring spirit. Being coined with the nickname of “Chatterbox”, Lilli finds great joy in verbally bombarding everyone she sees, upon every opportunity she comes across, with the latest intelligence she has gathered from a wide variety of sources. On this day, Lilli was seemingly running low on the proverbial fuel for her information gathering so she was silently seated at the kitchen table, studying a book, ever diligently preparing for her next round of dispensing information to her family, ensuring they understood the ins and outs of whatever she was reading about.

Riy on the other hand was missing in action, which that in itself should have struck fear in the hearts of any caregiver. Many emergency room visits, broken bones and utter destruction have resulted from her silence and exploration. I remember hearing an old truth years ago, which described that if you don’t hear your children playing you must be prepared because they are definitely up to no good and world domination is the only thing on their minds. On this day we truly didn’t care if the world was run by a six year old genius or not. We were simply basking in the silence.

Our home is one of both; utter, hold onto your seat craziness, and yet, at times, pure solace from the most perfect correlation of a mechanism moving in perfect unison. Working together we all attempt to better each other while throwing in an adequate amount of humor through practical jokes, tickle sessions, and good hearted making fun of each other, while vehemently fighting to the end for one an other if the need arose.

Reclining slightly, I heard movement from upstairs and looked toward my lovely wife with a kind of apprehensive gaze, attempting to prepare her for what we would soon discover our youngest had been engaged in. Being smarter than I, she simply ignored me, in an apparent attempt to avoid eye contact. Little did I know that this simple act would allow her to avoid all parental accountability and help her put off the eventual truth that she would have to deal with the result forthcoming. With my attempts spoiled, to ensure she had adequate time to prepare for what we would surely be faced with in mere moments, the child made her way down stairs.

Bracing myself, yet intrigued at the possibilities, I placed a jovial smile on my face, ensuring that my child knew I was ready for anything and excited about discovering what she had created. To my dismay, ok, in all honesty, to my ever growing elation, she rapidly passed my location and promptly walked up to her mother. Now I will say I performed the proverbial “Cha Ching” in my mind as I watched the payback for momma’s ignoring my attempts to warn her.

As I watched Leona and Riyann’s interaction out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leona look at me with a kind of bewildered look in her eye. With an emboldened curiosity I looked up as Leona asked “Do you see what your child has done”? As I looked I could see Riyann with a big, proud smile affixed to her face, holding a Barbie doll. I then watched as Leona lifted a second doll, pointing it in my direction. Attempting to shield my lack of observation I simply replied that her baby doll was very pretty.

Leona quickly asked, No, do you see what Riyann has done? It then hit me. The genius of this six year old child had surfaced. We discovered that the silence from the upstairs was not Riyann devising a scorched earth plan of domination, but rather her spending an hour designing a clothing line for her barbies out of balloons. Looking on with disbelief, Leona and I could do little but praise the ingenuity of the child. She had taken a concept she had dreamt of in her mind, found a medium by which to create and put her thoughts into action. After regaining our senses and lifting our jaws from the floor we asked Riyann where she saw this and how she learned to create these clothing lines from balloons. She simply said she “thought it up”.

So often we anticipate the worst possible result when we experience certain situations and people throughout our life. Maybe it is the person who has created angst in our mind, caused us stress, or simply doesn’t see things the same as us. Maybe it’s confronting a situation we have failed at previously or simply feared engaging in. When we restrain our options completely we fail to see the beauty which can result given a vision and a little hard work. Never restrain your dreams and natural abilities. Unleash your individuality for the world to see. For it is when we unleash them and put them on display that our progress is on full display, and our actions can benefit another in possibly unleashing their inner individuality.

Richard J. Stephens lives in Carter County and is the father of three little ladies ranging in age from eight to 29.