Superpower #16: Fearlessness

I was going to list this one as Adventurousness or Courage but looking back I have already found examples and written about these at length. I know being fearless, your 17^th superpower, is related to both, but I think there are subtle differences between those two superpowers and fearlessness. Neither Adventure nor Courage rule out the presence of fear. Indeed, I think I acknowledged your feelings of fear and trepidation in both of those posts. But sometimes, you have the superpower of total fearlessness. When you lean on that one, it is not that you power past any fright, but rather that you simply don’t have any. In so many circumstances, you are totally fearless.

In a few hours, you and your big sister Grace are heading out for your first solo sisters’ vacation. (It’s not totally complete since Lucy is staying behind to play in a volleyball tournament; though I have a feeling this will be the first of many). You plan to load up my van (the safest vehicle we have, and the one with a recent oil change) and drive yourselves out to Rocky Mountain National Park for a week of hiking and bonding. I am simultaneously so excited, so jealous, and slightly terrified for you. How can my baby girls be old enough to do something like this on their own? How can I let you blithely ride off into the literal sunset (you are leaving around 6 tonight and plan to drive straight west straight through the night) without a GROWN UP? I keep reminding myself that technically you are BOTH officially grown up. And at least one of you is completely fearless. 

And then I keep reminding myself of this important fact: this is exactly how I raised you to be.  This is precisely how I want you to live your life: fearless and fierce and eager for experiences and adventure. You are both strong and you, for one, are completely unafraid.

I have to admit, that there is a small part of me that is looking forward to your experience of solo travel simply for the tactical, administrative, fussy irritations of it. For the first time in your life, these frustrations will be entirely yours to handle. I think you may look back at some of our family trips and realize that all the little nuisances I couldn’t completely anticipate or alleviate are not just irritating but virtually inevitable. I think you may appreciate “vacation mom mode” a little more after doing this alone. If you don’t plan for yourself, there will be no one to hand you a tissue, or a snack, or a Band-Aid. This will all be on the two of you. Having no fear isn’t the kind of superpower that warms you up on a dawn mountaintop when you forgot to bring a sweatshirt.

I also know that some of your fearlessness is your utter lack of forethought. You haven’t even packed, much less worried about planning for surprises. I would worry more on your behalf, but I know Grace has. She drove me crazy last night running down headlamps and bear spray (bear spray!) and extra batteries and sunscreen. She has peeked around a few corners. Combining that with your confidence in decision making and talking to strangers as well as your deeply ingrained capableness make me sure this will be both the adventure of a lifetime and a wonderful experience on your road to adulthood. Your fearlessness and good sense, combined with Grace’s caution and maturity make you exceptional travel partners. This will be epic. Your superpowers (adventure, confidence, fearlessness, joy) will ensure it is so. 

Some of your fearlessness is your confidence in your strength and your skills, and this is not unfounded confidence. You are adaptable and smart. We have traveled together extensively in the service of your basketball career over the last several years, so I know you have developed the skills to respond to unplanned travel experiences. This will be the first time you and Grace have to handle it totally independently, however, so I’m guessing there may be some surprises.

A sense of fearlessness in your quest for adventure will serve you exceptionally well, however. Take care of yourself, take care of your sister, and have an amazing time.  I’ve always loved Helen Keller’s quote, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” Certainly, you are on the path to a life of daring adventure, and I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s what I raised you to be.

Update: You arrived safely and sent us these photos from the road! Ride on, fearless girls!

Superpower #15: Holiness

I'm including here the letter I wrote for you when you made your "God's Time" (Kairos) retreat your senior year. Perhaps you have saved it somewhere, perhaps you have not, but I think it is worth preserving in this memento. Many of the stories are repeated because they are some of my favorites. You've probably heard them repeatedly over your growing up years, and for that I can't say I'm really sorry. Those memories are a delight to my heart and though they may make you roll your eyes at the repetition, I'll never stop enjoying my recollections of you.

Is holiness really a superpower of yours? Probably not among the first and foremost, but I hope I've instilled a love for Jesus and a deep faith you can lean on to power your future. Cultivation of this superpower will never be wasted.

March 2024

Dear Claire,

You were born underwater.  I don’t know if you remember me telling you that, but you were.  You had a shock of dark black hair and it stood straight up once it was dry like you were an Eskimo baby.  Everything about you seemed lucky.  You were our 3rd child born at 3:33 on a hot Thursday in July and I don’t remember you ever crying.  It’s like that first early bath washed away all the crankiness and irritability that most babies have and left behind only your wonder and excitement at being alive.  You used to wait for me to pick you up in your crib in the morning without even crying.  It was like you knew how much you were loved and could wait for someone to come for you.  As you got bigger, you would greet us with a big smile and pull yourself up on the bars, bouncing with excitement and raising your chubby little arms up with so much enthusiasm to greet the day.  I wish we had made your middle name Joy.  

As you have grown, I have waited and worried for that joy to wear off or wear down.  Your open armed approach to the world is my favorite thing about you.  I remember once taking you and your siblings to the pool and watching each of you enter the water in a way that was so indicative of your personalities.  One of you was cautious, one was confident and efficient, and one leapt in with shining eyes and a beaming smile.  Guess which one was you?

Thank you for sharing that joy with the world.  I used to tell you that your superpower was making new friends.  Everywhere we went, Claire had a new best friend, most famously when you were about 3 and we were spending a long weekend at Lake Okoboji.  You came up to me and asked to go on a boat ride.  “We don’t have a boat, honey,” I reminded you.  

“I know, but my best friend does!” you announced cheerily.  

“You have a best friend here?” I asked.

“Yes, she’s downstairs.  Her mom wants to talk to you.”  Sure enough, you had found a friend with a boat and sweet talked a ride for yourself and your older brother and sister.  Everywhere you go, people are drawn to you. This is a gift that you should recognize and take seriously.  Always use it for good—to encourage and comfort and lead—and use your confidence and friendliness to make sure everyone is noticed and included.  God gave you that joy and that superpower for a reason.

He also gave you a great gift in your athleticism.  We realized this early when we continually had to rescue you off tabletops and counters because you loved to climb.  We nicknamed you “the Taz” (short for Tasmanian devil) when you were a toddler because you were always moving and into something. As you got bigger, and started joining organized sports, we discovered that we shared a great love of basketball, and sharing the sport and all the triumphs and defeats and excitement over the years has been such a gift to me.  I am so proud of your accomplishments on the court, but, more, I am proud of how you always conduct yourself with integrity and humility.  You are a great player but, more importantly, you are a great person. 

As you make your Kairos retreat this weekend, really slow down (this is one of your biggest struggles.  Well, that, and keeping your room clean).  God is in the stillness and the silence, and our busy, modern lives leave so little time for reflection.  You have a lot of big decisions and steps coming up in the next few years, and you will need Jesus’ guidance along the way.  In case you worry that this will be too tough of a challenge for you (the slowing down part, I mean.  You are more than up to the big, wonderful life He has planned for you), I want to share with you some wisdom I learned at a similar retreat about 20 years ago.  A young nun described the connection between God and happiness that literally changed my life.

“God is love,” she said.  “And God made us out of love and for love.  He knows what we want and what we need before we do. He wants to pour this love over us, but we have to listen.  We have to ask.  We have to seek holiness, because in holiness we find Him and the happiness he wants for us.  Perfect holiness and perfect happiness are the SAME THING!”  

Remember this, as you seek Him this weekend.  He wants to multiply the joy that is at the core of your being through a relationship with you.  Being holy means being happy, and we all want that for you more than anything.

Claire, being your mom is truly one of the greatest gifts of my life.  You are the joy of my heart and of our home. I am so grateful every day that God gave me you.

I’ll be praying for you this weekend (and always) my CC, my Taz.  

May God bless you always, my beloved girl.  

I love you,  Mom   

Superpower #14: Popularity

We attended 4 graduation parties last Saturday. 4! In one day! Both Grace and Sam’s graduation experience was pretty overshadowed by Covid—Grace especially as a member of the class of 2020. But I don’t think we attended 4 total for either one of them across the entire graduation party season. We are getting to a point of party fatigue with you. There are just so many invitations and so many parties we feel like we need to go to.  The fourth and final party on Saturday happened to be hosted by my first cousin. You’ve been friends with her daughter, Olivia, for your whole life, and by the time we arrived, the party was almost over. Only family remained, which was fine because they were mostly our family, too. We collapsed, exhausted, onto the folding chairs and explained our late arrival. “Four parties!” someone exclaimed. “You guys are popular!”

“It’s not us,” I quipped. Dad and I are reasonably well liked, I suppose, but we are fully riding on your coattails through this season, buoyed everywhere by your 14^th superpower: popularity.

“Popular” has always been a bit of a fraught word in high school. Being popular often means belonging to a particular group of individuals who are generally more attractive, more talented (in your school the talent usually manifests as athletic ability), and often wealthier individuals who aren’t necessarily well liked but are generally acknowledged as the best by the elusive, but reliably consistent mechanisms of teenage sorting. They are the homecoming queens and captains of the football team. They are beautiful, fashionable, unreasonably gifted, and often not very nice. You are many of these things (beautiful, athletic) but not others (unkind, elitist). You are not popular in the sense that you hang out with all the right people; you are popular in the actual definition of the word—universally well liked. You have friends in all friend groups; you are cheerful, gregarious, welcoming, and kind. By the more traditional definition (based on friend group) I would say you and your friends are “popular adjacent”: friendly, but not close to the girls who reign at the top of the queen bee hierarchy.  This has always been true for you.

Many years ago, when you were in elementary school, the mom of one of your classmates told me her daughter wished she could be more like you. “Claire is just friends with everybody,” she said. From my seat in the bleachers of your life, this appears to be very true. You are the classic example of someone for whom a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet.

One of our favorite stories about you happened when you were small, probably around age 4 or 5. We had taken a trip to visit Lake Okoboji and rented a house with a swimming dock right outside. You and your siblings were running around the yard waiting for your dad and I to finish cleaning up our lunch so you could go play in the water. You came running upstairs (our condo was on the upper level) and burst through the door. “Mom, can I go for a boat ride?” you asked somewhat breathlessly.

“Oh, honey,” I responded. “We don’t have a boat.”

“That’s ok,” you replied cheerfully. “My new best friend does.”

“You have a new best friend?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah!” you crowed enthusiastically, racing back out the door.

I followed you down to the dock where, sure enough, a little girl about your age was waiting in a boat with her parents for you to get permission to climb aboard. We approached the couple a bit hesitantly, not quite as adept at making best friends as you and started the process of asking questions and getting to know them. It turned out they were related to people we knew back home, and had, indeed, invited you to take a ride on the lake with them. “We’ll just go out for a little bit,” the dad assured us. “And we have extra life jackets. The other kids are welcome, too,” the dad said, gesturing to your eager siblings lined up beside you on the dock.

“See, Mom,” you said excitedly. “She’s my new best friend! Can I go for a boat ride?” Your dad and I exchanged a glance, then a laugh, then agreed.

“I guess so,” I said, helping you, and then your older sister and brother climb aboard. “Are you sure this is ok?” I asked the parents.

“No problem!” the mom assured me, beaming down at your happy little face.

You collect best friends everywhere you go. Long before I started writing this blog, I used to tell you this was your main superpower (I actually called it your superpower back then; I’m not just saying it because it fits so tidily into the theme of this blog). In later years, as adolescent uncertainty raised its unpleasant head in your generally joyful and confident heart, I would remind you of this. “What is your superpower?” I’d ask.

“Making friends,” you would repeat, and then you would run off and do it. You never lingered long when it came to going out to meet new people.

People respond to your spirit and your sense of fun. Boys and girls alike are drawn to you, and you pull them all in with a laugh and open arms. This past fall, you were elected to the homecoming court for your school. It wouldn’t have surprised me a bit if you had been voted queen. You weren’t, but just being on the court is quite an honor.

When they paired you up for the skit, you were assigned to a very popular boy who is quite the football star and with whom I wasn’t sure you had much of a relationship. I knew he had been dating a volleyball teammate of yours who was also very “popular”, and with whom you had had some challenges in the past. (I use the term “popular” to describe these two individuals in the “queen bee” sense of the word and not in the pure, “friend-to-all” sense that I use to define you).  I was somewhat intimidated on your behalf. As always, I tried not to let my own insecurities (which you blessedly don't really seem to share) interfere with your enjoyment of the event. As you prepared for the pep rally, in which you were required to act out a skit or dance with your assigned partner, I quickly remembered that you and this young man had met in kindergarten and had a long history of, if not friendship, then friendly acquaintanceship. You, being your cheerful and outgoing self, had no concerns about working with him.

Your skit was excellent and showcased the abundant athleticism and charm that you both possess. He may be more traditionally "popular" than you, and, though I don't pretend to understand all the intricacies of high school social structure, it seems to me that you are every bit as loved and admired as him, or anyone else in your class. I love looking at these pictures of you, radiant and confident, enjoying these moments even in the brightest of spotlights. More, take a look at the faces of the people in the background. Your joy and charisma are contagious. Every face is smiling in genuine enjoyment.

This is the magic of your 14th superpower. Maya Angelou once famously said, "People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel."  If you can make people feel as though they are wanted, appreciated, and enjoyed, then this is the measure of your true popularity, and a true superpower indeed. 

I haven't quoted Spiderman in very many posts since the very beginning, but it seems especially appropriate now. Popularity is certainly a superpower worthy of some caution. Remember that with great popularity comes great responsibility. You will need to be the one to reach out a hand to those that are being ignored or left out. You have the confidence and the social status to widen the circle when needed, to notice and include the quieter, more awkward kids (and eventually adults) that linger on the edges of things. Loneliness is a real threat in this disconnected, isolating new world of social media and exclusive tribes that we now live in. I hope you will always use your popularity for the good of all. Knowing you, watching you over the years, I have no doubt this will continue to be the case. I can't imagine a future in which you are not one of the most popular people in any room you enter. Use this 14th superpower to make the world a better, more welcoming place.

Superpower #13: Adaptability

When you were about 9, both you and your sister were part of separate, grade-level girl scout troops. Your whole life, you have joyfully joined in just about every activity that was offered at school or in the community and, though sports were always your favorite, you actively participated in whatever we signed up for. If you had friends around and enough to keep you busy, you gladly engaged.

One of my favorite stories of you (and one that our friends and family are all weary of my telling and retelling) is about the day both you and Lucy had a girl scout meeting to attend after school. I found the two of you playing in the living room and said, “Girls, you both have girl scout meetings after school.” You looked over your shoulder, shrugged a bit, and said, “Ok!” with your customary cheer.

Lucy’s little brow furrowed. Now, in her defense, she is 2 years younger than you which means at that point her experiences with after school activities were a bit more limited. But, more, her personality is just more inclined to concern and control than yours. She barraged me with questions:

Lucy: “Where do I go after school?”

Me: “Go with Ella. Her mom is the leader and she will be there.”

Lucy: “What if Ella isn’t at school?”

Me: “Then go with Maren. She is also in girl scouts. Otherwise, I'm sure your teacher will tell you where to go.”

Lucy, frowning more deeply: “What do I do with my coat?”

Me, sighing and taking deep breaths: “They will tell you where to put your coat.”

Lucy: “What if I forget my coat?”

Me: “I will remind you. And if we have to, we can buy you a new one.”

Lucy: “Well, what are we having for a snack?”

Me: “I have no idea.”

Lucy: "Well what if I don’t LIKE the snack?”

And around and around we went. Lucy wanted to consider every contingency and understand every second of the schedule. You were going to girl scouts. End of story. It was such a vivid illustration of the difference in your two personalities. If it weren’t for the comparison, I might not have noticed at such an early age how very adaptable and confident you could be. Had girl scouts been cancelled, had the leader’s daughter not been at school, had you lost your coat, you would have blithely moved through the day, never pausing to worry too much. The flip side of this scenario is that Lucy never loses her coat (you lost one about every other winter), and she often packs a backup snack just in case. You just go hungry if you don’t like something that is being served. (Side note: you usually like almost everything). You are also the child who uses my hair ties, borrows and loses my flat iron, calls me in a panic to bring a backpack or sweatshirt to school long after the first bell. You don’t sweat the small stuff, and in many circumstances, it is a true superpower. Like all superpowers, however, it has its dark side. People who are more prone to planning (like your sister and me) don’t always appreciate when we are called upon to help cover for your lack of foresight and planning. Your unfailing ability to go with the flow is a gift, without question, and things generally work out for you with that breezy approach to life. (A note of caution about this superpower: Be grateful to those of us who worried in advance and consequently planned ahead. The world tends to like you better, even though they like eating our backup snacks and borrowing our backup pencils when they forget).

I like to think of myself as fairly adaptable as well, but my adaptability has more of a Lucy flavor to it. I can generally roll with whatever my day brings because I packed a sweatshirt, umbrella, snacks, and extra tissues in advance as I considered all the possible scenarios and outcomes the night before. You are more likely to roll through your day with an easy smile and a heart fully open to adventure as your life unfolds. It’s a lovely way to live, even if it often involves a sheepish request to borrow necessities from your more prepared friends or family members. Sometimes it means you go without, or get cold, or get hungry or thirsty, but your superpower of adaptability serves you well in those cases as you just keep smiling and move onto the next thing.

Being adaptable will be a great superpower as you head into your bright future ahead. The world is never quite as predictable or plannable as your sister and I would prefer, and nobody sticks very well to an agenda. The world is kinder to those who can respond flexibly to the unexpected, and I know you will. When (not if) you are faced with some kind of surprise, I hope you’ll keep responding with a smile, a shrug, and your cheerful “OK!” 

Superpower #12: Belovedness

You have been with your boyfriend Owen since you were both just sophomores. In the tumultuous years of high school, this is quite an achievement of maturity and devotion and there has been a lot of talk in our family about whether you have managed to find your person at the tender age of 15. Of course, there is no way to predict how life will unfold over the next several years and I have been careful from the start about putting any pressure on you as your relationship has grown and evolved. In fact, when we were in Hawaii for spring break, you mentioned that his family occasionally makes comments like “we hope you are our daughter-in-law someday” and you worried that since we never said that we didn’t like Owen as much as Owen’s family likes you. I rushed to assure you that, of course, we love Owen, but we never wanted you to feel any pressure to stay with him because of us. We also talked at length about whether you planned to try and stay together throughout your college careers. He will be staying in Dubuque to play basketball for Loras and you, obviously are heading to St. Louis to play there. 5 hours apart is a lot, especially at this pivotal moment in your lives. But it is possible. It may even be likely.

I was hesitant about writing this for you in case it doesn’t work out. I’ll print these nonsense musings in a book for you someday, and if your future husband isn’t Owen, it may seem like a weird thing to have in a tribute book from a mother to a daughter.

But there is no doubt that your relationship with Owen has been an important and central part of your high school experience, so I decided to include it here. You certainly have the superpower of inciting loyalty and love. My editing software says “belovedness” is not a real word, but I am included it in your list of superpowers anyway. You are dearly loved by that friendly, gangly young man of yours. It is a wonderful thing to see that kind of devotion in his eyes when he looks at you.

A few years ago (pre-Owen) you met a young man on vacation in Jamaica. It was utterly innocent (at least as far as I know). It started when we were all playing sand volleyball on the beach and he and his dad joined our family game. Later that day, you happened to meet up in the pool and played catch with a football for hours (even through a fairly substantial downpour that sent most of us sun worshipping vacationers darting for cabanas and hotel rooms). Of course you inspired his attention, being both stunningly beautiful in your bikini, incredibly athletic in every game you undertook, and friendly and charming on top of that. Later that night as we waited for our table at one of the resort restaurants, your young man bravely sought you out in your gaggle of siblings to ask for your snapchat. We teased you a bit, but you clearly inspired that bravery, dare I say what might have bloomed into belovedness had your hometowns not been several thousand miles apart. We told Owen about it and asked if he’d ever picked up a vacation girlfriend. “Oh, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me,” he said. Somehow in that humble comment, he made it clear that he felt lucky to have you, and he knew he was swinging above his weight class by winning you over. As your mom, I am certainly biased, but I would say you are the better half.

A lot of the kids call you my favorite and this isn’t true. I always say you are in my top 5, but I truly don’t have any favorites. Once, when we were at a delightfully themed “frog catching and wine drinking party” at one of my friend’s homes, she also asked if you were my favorite. I was honestly a bit shocked (do other mothers admit to such a thing?), so I denied it as I always do. 

“She would be my favorite,” she said without hesitation. I snapped a picture that day, and I can't find it, but in so many photos of you over the years it’s easy to see why from the outside looking in, you would be the most beloved. You are easy to love. It is truly and unavoidably one of your superpowers. You have been a delight to parent across the years. You are a delight to befriend, to adore, to date. It’s just who you are. You invite love. This is no small superpower. Indeed, it may be the greatest one so far.

When I was a senior in high school I came across these words in the gospel of John, “my dear people, let us love one another because GOD IS LOVE.”  Now you see those words on bumper stickers, but back then I remember being utterly flabbergasted.  Our God IS LOVE?  Becoming a mother helped me understand that concept a bit more, though it will obviously remain something of a mystery forever. Being loved, and loving others, is actually the whole point. And having belovedness—not just by your mother who would love you anyway, or by your God who loves everyone—as one of your superpowers is no small thing. It is one of the reasons I can find it in me to let you go in a few months. With history as a guide, I know you will go forward to be adored and loved by so many new people, and that is a remarkable superpower indeed.

Superpower #11: Confidence

This weekend, we hosted the largest party your dad and I have ever attempted to put together. We were celebrating your graduation from high school and, if I do say so myself, it was a raging success. As is typical of your lucky life, the weather was stunning—full sun, highs in the 70s, a perfect cool breeze. Your dad has worked tirelessly to have our beautiful property in immaculate condition. The trees (oh the trees! All. The. Trees. I’m assuming this inside joke won’t fade in the future, but just in case you need the reminder: we all agree your dad might have a bit of an addiction to planting trees. In his defense, the dozens (hundreds?) of them that he has added to our already very tree heavy acreage have added immensely to its beauty. But there are a lot of them, and they all were in full summer foliage this weekend. It was green and lovely).

And you! You reigned above the entire event like the friendliest, most cheerful and beautiful queen of the day. We had told you before the event that we expected you to greet people as they arrived, whether you knew them or not. Everyone there was attending to celebrate you, even if they only knew you through your dad and me. Everyone came bearing gifts to celebrate your future, so we wanted you to make a point of exchanging a few words with each guest. You performed your task brilliantly. You stood near the top of the lane and greeted every single person who walked up the driveway. I stayed by your side as much as possible, helping with the names of obscure relatives and idle chitchat, but you were so generous and polished with your dazzling smile and your easy charm.

Which brings me to your 11^th superpower: confidence. You have always been the girl who strides unabashedly and determinedly into every situation that life asks of you, and as your world expands and you grow towards adulthood, nothing has changed. You are confident. In the quiet of our heart-to-heart chats, you sometimes admit to having to fake it in the moment (one of the very few keys to adulthood that I—and now you--have figured out: fake it ‘til you make it). Even this weekend as you greeted friends and relatives for about three straight hours, in a rare lull you turned to me and said something to the effect of “I am so bad at this!” but trust me, beautiful girl, you are not bad at this. You are epic. In addition to your pervasive warmth and charm, you really do have a superpower of underlying confidence that helps with almost everything.

It doesn't hurt that you are quite beautiful. It always seems to me that beautiful people have a bit of an inside advantage when it comes to stepping into the world with confidence. But, when you were younger, you went through a bit of a chubby phase. You had full cheeks and a round little pot belly, and you were always about 2 heads taller than everyone in your class, boy or girl. The two heads taller thing comes from me, a fact that tormented me for most of my post-pubescent life. Honestly it wasn’t until you and Grace reached your full heights, just an inch shorter than me, that I finally shed some of my discomfort with my size. At your age, I was ravaged by embarrassment at my unseemly size, and my tendency to slouch, while certainly skewed that way due to genetics, was undoubtedly exacerbated by my aversion to being taller than everyone else. You had the double handicap (at least for girls) of being big and tall for a while. Your first communion dress was a size 12 (recall that children’s clothes are sized by age and you made your first communion when you were 8! For reference, your “little”—and littler—sister wore a size 6). But your self-confidence never wavered. You didn’t do that hideous thing that so many girls do as they hit puberty and realize that their perfect and beautiful bodies aren’t in fact perfect and beautiful by society’s standards. You were beautiful when you were bigger than everyone. You are certainly beautiful by all standards now. Further, you were always universally well loved, and your body served you exceptionally well on every athletic court and field.  So, you have always remained joyful, fun, and completely confident.  All through middle school, even as you started to stretch up and out, gaining inches but not much in pounds you were confident. You were a leader and a good friend to all.

Watching you this weekend, stepping confidently forward to shake hands or hug every single guest who walked into your party, I was so dazzled by you. My mom sent you this text on the Sunday after the party, “Claire, papa and I were just talking about yesterday and the nice party we attended. We wanted to let you know that we were very impressed how you greeted each guest as they were arriving. It would be so easy to not pay close attention and get involved in who you’re with and it would’ve been so easy to miss people, but in our estimation, you got them all (including the old farts and people you probably didn’t know very well). Love you!” She didn’t use the word “confident”, but it radiated from you in every move that you made. And it wasn't just me who thought so. 

Confidence is so important in adulthood. Having this skill in your superpower repertoire will serve you so well into the future. Thinking back on that golden afternoon and you in your yellow sundress with your beautiful blue eyes shining with joy and love as every person walked into that party, I just could not be prouder of the woman you are becoming. The world may not always love a confident woman, but one who steps forward to greet it with shining eyes and open arms will always be a super-hero capable of doing great things.

Note: Pictured below are only photos of the setup before very many people arrived. As usual, I was too busy living in the moment and playing hostess with you to take many photos of the event itself. I'm including them here just as a reminder of how it all looked.