Gotta Find My Two

Gotta Find My Two

Written by Cassia Sherrill

Olivia noticed her daughter, Lacey, enter the house, and she was noticeably distraught, which was not typical of Lacey. Without even hesitating, she followed her daughter up the stairs to find out what was wrong. Lacey flopped herself onto her bed with huge tears rolling down her face.

Olivia lightly tapped her bedroom door before entering. “Lace, sweetie, are you okay?” She sat on the edge of the bed directly beside Lacey and started gently rubbing her back.

“I...I don’t want to talk about it right now, Mom!”

Genuinely concerned by Lacey’s behavior as this was not normal of her perky and positive eleven year old, she said, “That’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it right now, but I want you to know that I am here. For whatever you need, okay?” Lacey nods before turning and burying her head in her pillow.

Olivia continues to rub her back for a few moments. It may be best to give her some space. We can talk about what happened in a little bit, she thought.

She started to walk out of the room as she was brainstorming her game plan for how to talk effectively with Lacey later when she whispers, “Mom, I don’t think I am going to be special.”

“What?”

She sits up in her bed with tears still rolling down her cheeks. “I don’t think I am ever going to be special, Mom. Everyone else is, but I just don’t see what makes me special.”

Olivia’s heart breaks, but she immediately knows that this conversation is going to have to be handled delicately. She comes back over beside her daughter and wraps her in a gentle hug. “Honey, you are so so special, but I don’t want to just feed you empty words. So why don’t you tell me what happened, and I can go from there, okay?” She gave her daughter the most tender smile she could muster.

Sniffling, Lacey began to open up to her mother. “Well...at school, you know we have been working on the community projects to help the elderly, right?” Olivia nods. “Okay, I tried really really hard to think up some cool ideas for our class to do. I thought they were really good, and I was super excited to share my ideas with the rest of the class. I tried to go first, but Mr. Tegan picked Jill to speak first. She got up, and she told the class her idea. Her idea was identical to one of my ideas, and I felt a bit sad about that. But I knew I had a few other ideas too. Mr. Tegan called on Stephen next and then Tyler, and every single time a new person stood up it was like they were reading my mind. They were saying my ideas until I had none left. Mr. Tegan finally called on me after a little while, but when I got up there, I just froze. I didn’t have a single idea because all of the ideas I had come up with were already said. I felt so stupid and so unoriginal.” She took a pause from her story to blow her nose. “It just made me feel really dumb that I put so much time into these ideas. I thought they were cool and unique, and I just knew I was going to blow everyone away with them. And it reminded me of how I sometimes feel overlooked in dance practice too.”

This intrigued Olivia because she had never heard Lacey complain about dance practice. She loves dance.

“I will be working really hard on a move. Trying to do it exactly as the teacher shows us, and I get it as perfect as I can. I will raise my hand and show that I got the move. She will say something like “Good job” or “Well done, Lacey,” and I will feel proud and special for like two minutes. Until one of the other girls gets the move. They will show her, and she will praise them for their hard work and great execution of the move. And I will feel invisible. I can work really hard at something, whether that is a dance move or a great idea, but at the end of the day, nobody is going to care. There is always going to be someone who does it better or had the idea first.” Lacey’s tears had stopped previously during her story, but now she was starting to tear back up again. “I don’t see how I can be special, Mom, in a world where everyone has already done it better than I ever could.” She buried her face in Olivia’s lap and let the tears come once again.

Olivia let her daughter cry on her lap while she considered what should be said here. Clearly this feeling has been building inside of Lacey for a while now, but it has finally come to a head. I cannot believe that I haven’t noticed this in her... But Lacey in a lot of ways was so much like Olivia. Olivia had always been good at masking her feelings to the point where only those really close to her could sometimes pick up that something was bothering her. It seems Lacey inherited this trait of mine.

“Lace, can you look at me for a second?” Lacey turned her wet face up towards her mother, but her head was still resting on Olivia’s lap. “Please hear me when I say that you are special…”

“Mom! You have to say that!” She let her tears continue to course down her face.

“Lacey, you did not let me finish. Yes, I do say that because I am your mother, but I think you are special for so many more reasons.”

“Like what? Please name them,” she responded, sarcastically.

“You are special because most eleven year old kids would have heard that someone else had shared the same idea as them and would’ve forgotten about it. Most kids would not even notice that they did not get the same reaction out of their dance teacher because they were too busy doing the step over and over again. Lost in their own world of victory and accomplishment. You care so deeply. You want to make a difference. You do not want to settle for mediocre when you could be special. You want to please people, but in that wanting to please others is where you are hurting yourself. You are trying to prove that you are special to your classmates, your teacher, your dance teacher, and if you keep that up, you are going to wear yourself out. Not everyone is going to think you are special, and that is just a hard fact. But the most important thing is that you know and believe in your heart that you are special. The only person you have to convince that you are special is yourself.”

Olivia brushed the wet hair away from Lacey’s red face. “I am going to let you in on a secret. Most people who have been of any importance in our history have always believed deep down that they were special, but most had to work hard at continuing to believe that. They had people doubt them, doubt their capabilities, doubt that they were meant for something great. They too doubted themselves. People, at first, did not see them as special, and then one day when they were at the top, people flocked to them because of how special and important they were. People and their opinion of you are going to be fleeting, and they are going to constantly change their minds. Do not for one second ever let what others think of you deter you from what you believe you can accomplish in your heart. Lace, you can do anything you set your mind to, truly, but you are going to have to work hard. It is not going to be easy. You are probably going to have a hundred ideas, and ninety-eight of them have already been thought up previously. You still have those two ideas that you must run with, and you are going to have to run after those ideas with all you have. Do not let the fear of what others are going to think of the idea stop you. Do not let the fear that someone is going to present the idea before you stop you. Do not let anyone or anything stop you. That is what already makes you so special, sweetie. You already have that fire in you. That is why you are sitting here crying to me right now.”

Lacey sat up and contemplated all that her mother had just told her. She grabbed a tissue and wiped the tears off her cheek. After a few moments, she looked up with her usual joy back in her eyes as she hugged her mom. “Thank you, Mom! I do believe I am special, and if I ever get like this again, just remind me that I said that, okay? You are the most special mom that I ever had” she said with a giggle. “Now I am going to go brainstorm some new ideas. Gotta find my two!”

She kissed Olivia's cheek, and with a quick smile, she flew downstairs. Olivia sighed a huge breath of relief as she whispered to herself, “Go brainstorm away, my special girl.”