Listening and watching...

Today as I sat at lunch in a restaurant alone, I didn't pull my phone out as I almost always do - mostly to feel less alone, to find comfort, to look at something so I don't feel like I'm just sitting there watching others.  Instead I just watched and listened.  Next to me two teenage girls talked nervously about learning to drive ("I practiced in the church parking lot and then drove home.  I'm not  sure I will ever get used to it."  
"You will.  I used to be nervous.  Now it just comes automatically.")  And then their conversation shifted briefly to college and where they might want to visit - one clearly wants to stay close while the other wants to go as far away as possible.  They then joked about watching "The Princess and the Frog".  I listened as they cautiously tip-toed around the topic, feeling the other out, finally admitting to loving it once it seemed safe to do so.  One shared that her mom cried during it (as had she), and then said she gets embarrassed at the movies with her mom because she is the person in the theater who claps when something funny or good happens (I guiltily smiled to myself because I, too, am that person - likely also embarrassing my teen).  As I wrapped up my lunch they were focused on the merits of Apple music versus Spotify which turned into the need to have a credit card to use Spotify Premium and how one had gotten her first card and her mom wants her to start carrying more than her lanyard to keep her money safe (I'm fairly certain they were rolling their eyes at this point).

I listened to them and thought about time...it wasn't all that long ago that I drove for the first time, and sat with my friends talking about college and the future...of course, we could never have imagined the ways music would change, but we sure did love a good mixed tape!  And I thought of my girl with four years sitting in front of her that are about to shape her future and catapult her into the life she was created for.  She will do each of these things...sooner than I want to admit...she will drive...she will dream of the life ahead of her...she will say and do things I will be proud of, and some I will wish she had said or done differently...she will make choices I will never know about and she will deal with demons and situations she may never share with me.  So, while I may be the mom who claps when something funny or good happens in a movie it's because at the end of the day I am #foreveracheerleader and that kind of enthusiasm is hard to contain.

Lastly, as I sat and listened to those girls, I thought about my very own #sensationalsix and how, by the grace of God, we somehow managed to take the moments we shared as kids and turn them into something of substance and unshakable strength.  I don't  know how we got so lucky...I honestly don't.  But, every time I see girls hanging out like I did today, I want so much to give them what we have.  To show them that they will come out on the other side of all this teenage crap, and the people they should hold on tight to aren't the boys they THINK matter so much, but the girls who are walking with them through the moments that seem so huge and hard and beautiful and heartbreaking right now because, if they are really lucky, they will still be the ones walking beside them during the really big and really hard moments that make up...this life.