It's you I like

It's been awhile. For a few months now, I have been keeping myself ridiculously occupied with work and volunteer stuff. Maybe I'll write about it sometime. My therapist suggested that maybe I go on these jags to try to ward off depression. Which I think is absolutely true. Like, it's better for me to be this busy, and to jump out of bed in the morning to attack my to-do list, than to struggle to get out of bed in the morning because no one will suffer if I stay in bed for just one/two/three more hours.

Switching gears. Several years ago I tore this page out of the Friend magazine, laminated it, and hung it on the front of my fridge. It's the only thing on the front of my fridge, and it's been there for... 7 years. (Just checked the date on the page.) (Don't mind the terrible quality photo, I was lazy and just used my laptop camera. Peekaboo, side of my hair.)

"I love everything about you," it says. What in the world... EVERYTHING about you?? I'm OK with that statement. Maybe I don't literally love everything but pretty darn close... because the hard stuff, the really really tough stuff, in the weeds and the dirt and the mud, is worth it in the end. Well, it has been so far.

A few months into the pandemic, Holly Yarbrough's version of the Mr. Rogers classic "It's You I Like" came up on Spotify. I cried. I sing parts of that song to at least one of my kids almost every day. I have this overwhelming sense of gratitude for the privilege during this pandemic year to discover that I like my kids. (and my husband.) I really like them!! They're so annoying sometimes, but honestly not that much more annoying than I can be when I try.

And I really like my siblings and my parents and my in-laws and I miss them all.

Want to know something funny? Ida came in crying just now as I was typing about how much I like my kids, and proceeded to recite all the horrible things Lars and the boys had been doing to her and the girls. Bah.

It's you I like. It's not the things you wear. It's not the way you do your hair, but it's you I like.

The way you are right now, way down deep inside you.

Not the things that hide you. Not your toys: they're just beside you.

It's you I like: every part of you. Your skin, your eyes, your feelings, whether old or new.

I hope that you remember, even when you're feeling blue,

That it's you I like, it's you yourself, it's you: it's you I like.