Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a broken heart

We all have had our heart broken…sometimes it can feel like more times than is even possible to endure. Yet somehow we heal and move on. And sometimes that healing takes a brief amount of time, and sometimes it drags on and on, with old wounds reopening when you least expect it.

I experienced a new kind of heartbreak the other morning when I dropped O off at daycare. She was being extra clingy and hesitant to leave my side. This happens about 75% of the time, so I didn’t think too much of it, until I witnessed her friends, two boys who had been her friends since infanthood, say they didn’t want to play with her because she was a girl and they had boy toys that they didn’t want to share (which were, by the way, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…can you believe those things are still around??).

The look on O's face crushed me.  Not only is this whole boy-girl gender battle seriously raging (see my blog post on Batgirl), but at the tender age of 4, she is already facing how people can be hurtful and exclusionary.  Maybe the scars of prio heartbreaks amplified my reaction, but I just thought of all the times she will get hurt in life and it made me so sad. I agonized over it all day - how can I teach her to still be her own person even when others reject her, how can I teach her to still do what's right even when others don't, how can I keep her from having her heart broken like I have.

Later in the day, I checked in with O and asked her how the day went and how her friends were doing. She promptly told me everything was great and that they always share (there was an implied "jeesh mom" in her tone). That they played dinosaurs and horses and J did a funny thing with the policeman hat and they had a great time.

Ah, the resiliency of a pre-schooler.

So yes, I am learning I can't protect my girls from getting their heart broken. It will happen. Likely a lot. But I can try to teach them that you have to feel strong in who you are and what you want, and you can't base your happiness on other people's validation. And hopefully that will lessen the heartbreak and speed the healing. Reduce the scarring.  I came across this quote recently that sums it up perfectly: "The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you."

And I learned that man, you have to be able to let it go (yes, there is a lot of "Frozen" being played in the house). Be willing to forgive and forget, and also being willing to close the door when necessary, even if that means leaving something...or someone...on the other side. Don't dwell in the past. Don’t hold onto the pain and let it ruin your day (like it ruined mine and clearly not O's)…or worse, your life.

So forget the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I mean seriously, can we get rid of those things already?) and go play horses and dinosaurs. Or go play with someone else if you have to.  But own your own happiness. No one has the power to ruin your happiness but you. And let the heartbreak heal as fast as you can muster. Be like a 4 year old :-)