Oh to be a little girl again.

Some people write letters to their little girl selves, telling them to hang in there. Telling them how great it will be some day when they're all grown up. Telling them what to look forward to and what to not worry about.

Just ignore the mean kids. They're mostly just insecure boobs. 

Speaking of boobs, you will get some, some day, and you'll discover that they're just not that big of a deal after all. 

And speaking of that again, boys will like you some day
... at first cause of... well ...boobs. 
But those are definitely not the boys to pay attention to. 
And no, boys don't ever stop being weird, but they are great!

Finally, young Kathy, enjoy your muffin-top-free years sweet child, as you rock your new bell bottoms and your brand new clogs.

Yada yada...

This isn't about that.

I have never been one to wish to be younger. 

Gray hair don't care!

At least not often ... curse you gray hair that changes the texture and body of your whole dang head, seriously...

So other than the hair, and the muffin-top thing (nasty), I'm good with older. I've even been heard
saying, wouldn't wanna go back and do that over again. No sirree, no thank you ma'am.

So this isn't "that" either.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend on Facebook posted this picture.

 This.

This is the place I spent most of my summer days ... This is a picture of the lake that was mere feet away from where, as young as I can remember, we drank in summer. We celebrated most of our warm summer days here, year after year. Until the year we moved to the other side of the continent. Until it was out of our reach and our summer days were spent poolside in our California ranch-style home. #humblebrag

(I know ... pity my life)

This is Camp.

Not sending-your-kids-away kind of camp.

Though they had that, and I was sent there for the first time, at the age of 5... oh my!

I'm talking about a family campground. 

One where you put down roots. Whether it was a cottage - which we owned - or a trailer or camper or just a tent, parked in it's -permanent-as-long-as-you-rented it spot. Or maybe they even owned that spot, I don't know. I was the kid and haven't a clue. 

But what I do know is that we spent days, weeks, months there. Every hot, humid summer we would head out of the city and travel in our wood-panelled station wagon to camp. The five us. Mom,
Karen, Karl and I, we would stay the entire time. Dad would travel back and forth for work, we would hunker down for the whole blasted summer!! 

Lazy mornings sleeping in... or not.

Days spent at the beach, on a lake that would go from putrid green slime 

...seriously 

like out of an alien movie or something 

obviously before environmental regulations were a thing

... to cool, clear, sandy-bottomed awesomeness!

I learned to swim there - not when it was putrid sludge mind you.

Learned to "swim" in the shallow break. Crawling on all fours on the sand ...I was 4.

Evenings spent at Kids' Church. Not can't-stop-wiggling or fall-asleep church. But singing, story-telling, game playing kind of church. Church where I learned that Jesus loved me. Where I learned to believe that Jesus loved every little child in the whole wide world, no matter their skin color, no matter what.

Days when it rained ... good ole thunder showers
    being from California where it thunder showers, almost never...
    except for today, which is weird, and is probably why this post is happening - today
    today, listening to the rain pour... in Southern California
    Strange times my friend.

In our smaller-than-most-kitchens-in-California cottage, sitting around our big ole, round, wooden kitchen table playing Monopoly for hours, or Rook, or Yahtzee. I loved playing Yahtzee.

It was good.

My childhood wasn't filled with fear, danger or regret. Maybe there was some, but today I don't remember any of it. 

That Facebook picture has made me remember the bonfires we lit, at the end of the summer when most campers had left the campground but we, the few, the brave, hung in there.

We ate the creamiest of creamy corn on the cob, straight from the field down the gravel road. Ate it til we were sick. Huge slices of watermelon that hadn't traveled from around the world, but were from the local farm stand. We roasted marshmallows hanging off of our metal hangers, cause we didn't know then that that heated up metal coated in who knows what would kill us some day. Heaven help us.

Oh to be a little girl again...
A time before,
before I knew the heaviness that is part of life now. A time when my mind was not yet able to grasp the pain I would feel some day for one of my own. Before I would witness such mind-numbing struggles and agony.

Don't be mistaken - I don't want to run away from my beautiful-as-it-is life. I don't regret, or lament or wish differently my Todays. 

But today I remember.
I remember a little girl, sitting on those hard wooden benches. A time when I learned well. I learned  and began the journey of understanding that He was a God to be trusted. He is the God to be trusted now.

Today, this week, this summer, as I listen to the it-never-rains-in-California summer rain, I'm just wanting some respite for my heart and my mind.

Just wanting to remember what it was like, to be a little girl again...

Dads living in a rose-colored world.

TV makes fatherhood look like a joke

Movies often make dads look like plain ole idiots

But Mom ... sacred! It's become akin to "holy mother of God" status. 

Don't get me wrong. I love me some lovin' on moms. Thank you very much. 

But Dads.

A Dad and his kids... so long ago.

Not every father is an idiot.

Not every father is absent

Not every father is void of love and loving and providing.

Sadly, there are those. Too many. Absent. Unloving. Idiotic. They've missed out on so much. They have blown it. And disaster is often left in their wake.
-But there are guilty moms too-

For all the Dads who love ... Yet who's love is interpreted through the female mothering lense that culture seems to place over its view of fathering. That rose-colored filter interprets your actions and your heart, and I think that's a shame.

A dad and his girl

You are not rose-colored, you are not a Mom or deserving of judgment solely from a woman's perspective.

Don't give up Dads. You are needed, so desired, so longed for. When you're misread, please keep trying, please keep talking and expressing and doing what you do so well.

Families need more heroes that are clothed in the skin of a Dad.
Please be brave. 

Please be present.

Please be emotionally connected, even when you may feel emotionally rejected... be brave.

A grandpa, a dad and the boys

Be the doers.
Be the often silent strength, but very present safety.
Be consistent and honest and hardworking warriors-of-families that you were created to be.

And when the womanized culture screams at you to be perfect, a woman's kind of perfect, please understand its often spoken from fear, or disappointment, or even ignorance.

Lead as you were destined to lead.
Nurture like a Dad.
Teach like a father.

And don't forget to laugh and to play and to hug,

and to be a Dad.

This.