“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – Wayne Dyer
The inner over-achiever, type-A personality in me used to look at post-it notes as a tool to help me stay on task, capturing and reminding myself of all the things I needed to get done. But that all started to shift when my son started Kindergarten. My husband (God bless him!) has always taken care of mornings with the kids, with me leaving for work too early most days to see them off.
My son started asking me to leave him a note in the morning next to his clothes I set out. He couldn’t read yet, so he would instead request drawings of different things each night. And while some nights this became another thing I needed to do before I could victoriously cross the finish line of my busy day, most nights I treasured channeling my inner artist, knowing that next morning we’d share a moment & he’d feel my presence even if I physically wasn’t there with him. And that thought filled me with love and made me smile each and every time.
And so began our tradition. And as he learned to read, the notes slowly turned into more words than pictures. I think this may have been a relief to us both, since it had become abundantly clear that mom wasn’t exactly the artist in the family. Though it did give us some pretty good comic relief at times!
I didn’t realize how much this meant to him until I noticed one day he had been saving each one of my notes and hung them up on his wall. Sometimes the notes were funny, some were sweet, some were encouraging and if I’m honest, some were apologetic if we hadn’t been our best selves the night before. But when I saw the collection of post-it notes displayed in his room, I realized they were really all saying the same thing – I love you.
I’ve been spending the past decade since becoming a mom working to ditch that inner over-achiever, type-A personality because while she serves a purpose, she often pulls me away from the moments and people right in front of me that most deserve my time and attention.
So while I still do like a good old-fashioned post-it note reminder (I said I’m working on ditching that inner over-achiever!), I now see those little pads of paper in a different way, serving a purpose far greater than I’d ever seen them serving before. Those past notes weren’t worth keeping…these are!