We are at the park for the umpteenth time. You love the swings and slides and steering wheel. I love the fresh air and towering pines and ample shade.
This park has become a backdrop to your development; a constant against which to measure your changes. Most recently, you are so excited to interact with other children. You see no obstacles to friendship at this age. If someone starts running, you assume they want you to chase them. And so you do, giggles and dust in your wake.
But today twin 5 year old girls want little to do with you. They are all pink tutus and silver shoes and tights, while you are all sandy knees and dirty fingernails and innocence. They run. You chase. They attempt to exclude you, but to someone who knows no exclusion it makes no sense. So you press on. You sit at their picnic table to share their Cheetos. When they say, "no, these are ours," you shyly wait.
When they exit to use the bathroom, you want to join them. You cry that you want them to come back. And when they return, they run to the slide. And you chase them. The sincerity with which you seek their favor is heartbreaking. On our ride home, when I question "what was your favorite part of the park today?" You respond: "Chasing the girls. I want them come to our house."
I watch in amazement. From your birth I have found my breath taken away by your innocence, in the truest, purest form. There is nothing more genuine in this whole wide world than a young child. But these 5 year old twins have already learned to exclude. They only have 2.5 years on you, but yet that simple acceptance of the world and those who occupy it is lost. I know they are still merely trying to find their place in what must feel like wide open space, and so they play with excluding someone who is easy to exclude.
But, oh my heart, how stunned I am. How so blatantly in front of me is everything that makes life and relationships so difficult. And while I have lived through this process of navigating friendships and being excluded and excluding others, it physically hurts me to think about how you will go through this. You will, someday obviously soon, realize that there is often us and them, in and out. And some days you will find yourself on one side of the fence, and the next day, the other.
Today, though, amidst these pine trees and slides and fresh air and steering wheels, I see what it might be like if we could keep your innocence. If only we could remain truly blind to pink tutus and silver shoes and gender and skin color. If only we all just wanted to play chase with any old soul that came along, and then invite them into our home.
