Looking For Monsters Under Your Bed And Trying Not to Become Them: Not Letting the Worst of Me Get the Best of You.

It’s been said that we don’t live a life—we live a pattern. I want her to be her own unique person, but right now, I’m her blueprint for everything—for how she moves through life, how she experiences joy and love, and how she handles frustration, rejection, anger, sadness, and despair.

The thing is, there’s no such thing as a perfect parent—or a perfect person, for that matter. I’ve been at this parenting thing for a while, but I’m still growing, still figuring out how to be the best version of myself. I’m acutely aware of the myth that by the time we have children, we will have worked through all our baggage. Despite our best intentions and our hope for a blank slate, we inevitably pass down some of our own hang-ups and anxieties. It’s almost impossible not to.

I want her to be carefree. I don’t want her to inherit my intensity in all the ways I feel it. Given my tendency toward self-awareness and suffering, I’ve compiled a list of the more troubling traits that have held me back at various points in my life: creative anxiety manifesting as procrastination, perfectionism, and self-doubt; crippling indecision (usually between two equally fruitful life paths); an overabundance of mercuriality; over-identification with emotions; a constant dissatisfaction with the status quo, leading to a lingering melancholy in daily life; senseless ruminating; envy and feelings of lack; self-absorption; brutally lashing out, followed by brooding retreat; caring too much; and oscillating between extreme cynicism and extreme idealism. That list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a start.

I hope she doesn’t inherit too many of these traits. More than anything, I hope she finds inner peace early in life. I hope to nurture that in her, so that when troubles arise, she will always return to herself. So that she will always have a home within herself. So that she will never feel incomplete.

But what do I hope she inherits? Well, that snarky mouth and that big heart, for starters. Both will serve her well, no doubt.