Sweetness

I said,"You're sweet" to two people tonight--and it was the truth.  One was my friend Becky--who doesn't self-identify as sweet.  The other was a young man in the line at Walmart who let me go ahead of him.

Becky is generous and caring  She often brings excellent snacks and libations to writing group.  She writes supportive emails.  She listens wholeheartedly, and everybody likes her.

She's also strong, articulate, funny, and brilliant--and lots of other things."Sweet" just doesn't tell the whole story. She was surprised--maybe a bit put-off--by the word.

Seeing the look on her face, I had a flashback to a time when (in a group of four friends) someone said I was "the sweet one."  It was a well-meaning compliment (and I wouldn't react today the way I did then), but I responded with lack of gratitude, to say the least. Maybe it came at a time I was trying to break out of the sweet mold?  Maybe I hoped for a more glamorous or unique label?  At any rate,  I wanted to be something better, flashier, bolder, funnier--than sweet.

"But I've come to accept that part more as I've gotten older, " Becky said--and so have I.  We need funny and bold and sweet in the world, and we do well to embody all the aspects of who we are.

I have two sets of Russian nesting dolls. When the grandchildren come, these dolls are the first things Nathan and Elena reach for. They take them apart, put them back together, take them apart again.  They line up the little dolls in a row beside the big one.  They try to put the bigger ones in the little ones.

We're all a bit like Russian nesting dolls.  The older we get, the more we can like (even love) the parts contained in the outer self.  The tiniest one in the center may be less visible to the world, or our friends, but it's there.  The outside big one is the one we're known by, but we like it when some of the rascals (or angels) come out and show their faces too!

When we're young, we're busy building the Self we want to be to other people, crafting an ego.  When we grow older, we've already made that self and we're not as attached to the illusion that that's "who we are," entirely.  We like the whiny ones, too, the brassy ones, the bossy ones, even the belligerent back-talking ones.  The outer self is bigger because we "contain multitudes"--as Whitman said.