Whatever I'll be, I'll be.
My NaNa tells me that, when people used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would respond with 4-years of unbridled confidence, “Whatever I’ll be, I’ll be.” I like to think that was wisdom beyond my years, but it was really just raw stubbornness that still has yet to be refined.
Here I am, 35 years in. I probably have to count myself as “grown up” by now. And I’m still thinking about what to be and learning how to be.
I always imagined what life would look like when I had a family - all my kids would play with their cousins. All the aunts, uncles and grandparents together. All the time. Just like when I was a kid. I never imagined living on a different hemisphere or having the inability to visit them. I never imagined Christmas happening in the summertime, or the abundance of cultures, languages and beauty I would live daily life amongst. I always imagined my kids being raised in my, my husband’s and their grandparents’ arms. And I never imagined having such big hope, dreams and visions for this faraway city, or feeling almost overcome with ideas and inspiration of ways to impact people’s lives.
In the middle of all the things I never imagined, I’m trying to figure out what kind of mom I want to be.
Every person has to walk this journey again and again as life seasons change. We have to decide what kind of people to put ourselves around, what kind of places to be, how to present ourselves, and who we are going to be in the context of relationships. If we don’t decide, we tend to default to the bottom rung of our ladder of experiences.
I’m the kinda gal who wants to do it all. Every opportunity, all the time. I want to be a stay at home mom, and I want to be out changing the world. I want my children to be my primary ministry, and I want to create Help Clubs, teach and inspire. I want to add value and breathe life into my home, and I want to do the same thing in the most poverty-struck, gang-ridden parts of Cape Town. All of it. All the time. Sometimes I feel stuck. If I can’t do it all, I can’t do anything.
On Sunday, I was turning the questions over and over again in my mind:
What kind of mom do I want to be?
When I look back at the early years of my kids’ lives, what do I want to have spent my time on?
How can I be the healthiest version of myself for my family?
The answer on that particular day was to stop asking questions and go to the beach. I woke up my eternally tired, napping, pubescent boy-child and packed up my never-tired, never-napping baby boy-child. It wasn’t an event. There were no plans. There was not even a beach bag. We just went to the beach for 45 minutes, and it was THE BEST.
I stopped wondering, planning and feeling sorry for myself because I missed my mom and wanted a cousin party. I live in a city that is literally built between two oceans and a mountain. The most handsome men on the face of the planet live in my house. And we live by the ocean.
Benjamin scream-laughed all the way there. Lifa and I could not get a full sentence out without being interrupted. We laughed so hard. Benjamin ate sand. Lifa’s new tennis shoes almost got carried away in the ocean. And we laughed and laughed. We played. We lived right there in the moment.
And on that 45-minute Sunday beach trip, I was right on track with my 4-year old self... Instead of wondering what I would be, making plans or solving problems... I was just being.
Whatever I’ll be, I’ll be. I’ll be a mom who makes memories at the beach in a moment’s notice. I’ll be a mom who loves enough to think about the kind of mom I want to be, and who is present enough to know when to stop thinking and start playing. I’ll be a daughter to the King of Kings, and He’ll show me how to take it from there.
