Last Tuesday I wrote a post called "Perspective." My friend Ann asked if I still had the paper I'd written as a 17 year old. It turns out I do. So here, in all its unedited glory, it is:
"I watched my father walk down the street - and he looked so small. Suddenly I thought, "He's only an ordinary person faced with the important and difficult task of shaping me into the right kind of person."
I thought how foolish it was of me to think of him as a bully who took pleasure in yelling at me or a tyrant who loved depriving me of doing what "everyone else" was doing. At that moment I felt a great respect for this man whom I, of course, love dearly in spite of all my "hardships." He must have been frightened when he first held me in his arms and thought of the responsibility that was his in molding a tiny baby into a good and responsible woman.
I want more than anything to make him proud of me - now that his job is just about over. I want to show him that all his work and love was not it vain- but that it paid off. That now is my responsibility."
Blessings,
From the 17 year old Linda
