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.