Sometimes Healing Looks Like Dancing in the Kitchen

A few weeks ago, I was cleaning my kitchen when Choosin’ Texas came on.

Now, if you know anything about my six-year-old, you should know that this is currently her favorite song. And by favorite, I mean we’re probably single-handedly responsible for a decent percentage of its streams.

So naturally, I started singing along with her, abandoned whatever cleaning task I was supposed to be accomplishing, and pulled her into the kitchen to dance.

Because obviously, when you’re supposed to be cleaning, the most reasonable thing to do is stop and put on a concert.

The whole thing happened to be caught on our security camera, and I saved the video.

I’ve watched it several times since then. But the other day, I was watching it again when I realized something.

How much I’ve healed.

And listen, I know that’s a pretty dramatic conclusion to draw from a video of me dancing in my kitchen, but hear me out.

I didn’t exactly have the easiest childhood.

There was a lot of yelling. My parents worked constantly, sometimes multiple jobs, and weren’t home much. And while I can appreciate now that adults have bills to pay and keeping a roof over everyone’s head is generally considered important, that doesn’t change how some of those years felt.

I remember getting yelled at for asking to go to the movies.

The movies.

Not asking for a car. Not requesting an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Bahamas. Just asking if I could go sit in a dark room and watch a movie for two hours.

I also remember things being said about me that no child should have to hear. Things that made me feel ashamed of myself when I hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

By 17, I had moved out of my parents’ house.

And unfortunately, moving out doesn’t mean everything you experienced growing up politely packs its bags and moves out with you.

Would’ve been convenient, though.

Instead, I carried a lot of it into adulthood.

The fear of someone’s reaction. The need to explain myself. The tendency to replay conversations in my head and wonder if I’d somehow done something wrong.

It’s exhausting, honestly.

And when I became a mother, I realized there were things I desperately wanted to do differently.

I didn’t want my children to be afraid to ask me a question. I didn’t want them to feel like they had to check the emotional weather forecast before approaching their own mother.

And I think about that sometimes when I look at the things my own kids feel comfortable asking me.

Remember how I mentioned getting yelled at for asking to go to the movies?

Well, last year, my daughter asked if her best friend from out of state could come stay with us for a week.

A WEEK.

And do you know what I did?

I drove four hours. ONE WAY. To pick her up.

Eight hours of driving because my child wanted to spend a week with her best friend.

Meanwhile, teenage me couldn’t even ask to go watch a movie without it becoming an entire situation.

Now, I’m not saying I grant every ridiculous request my children make. Absolutely not. I have four of them, and I’d need a second mortgage and approximately 37 additional hours in my day.

But I love that they feel comfortable asking. That they don’t automatically assume the answer will come with yelling, criticism, or a reason to regret opening their mouths in the first place.

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s no. And sometimes, apparently, the answer involves an eight-hour road trip.

But they can always ask.

Now, before anyone gets the impression that I float around my house radiating patience and unconditional serenity, allow me to clear something up.

Absolutely not.

I have four children.

There are days when someone leaves their shoes in the middle of the floor for the 900th time and I find myself wondering whether anyone in this house has ever encountered a shoe rack.

I yell sometimes. I get frustrated. I lose my patience. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’ve somehow mastered parenting because I’ve worked through some childhood trauma.

I’m still working on things. Probably always will be.

But I also apologize. I tell my kids when I could’ve handled something differently. I remind them that tomorrow is a new day and we can all try to be better than we were today.

Because they’re kids. They’re supposed to make mistakes, ask questions, be loud and ridiculous, and occasionally make me question why I ever thought having children was a reasonable life decision.

And they’re supposed to feel safe doing all of that.

Which brings me back to my kitchen.

When that song came on, I wasn’t standing there reflecting on my childhood or congratulating myself for breaking generational cycles.

My daughter’s favorite song was playing, and I wanted to dance with her.

That’s it.

No grand parenting moment. No carefully planned memory-making activity. Just me, my little girl, and a kitchen that was probably still dirty when we finished.

But watching that video weeks later, I realized I’d spent so many years trying to become a different kind of parent that I hadn’t noticed when some of those choices started coming naturally.

I didn’t have to remind myself to put down what I was doing and spend a few minutes being silly with my daughter.

I just wanted to.

And maybe that’s what healing looks like sometimes.

Not becoming someone who never gets upset or makes mistakes. Not having all your childhood issues neatly organized into labeled storage bins. Which, if you’ve seen the state of my actual storage bins, you already know isn’t happening.

Just recognizing what hurt you and trying not to pass it along.

I know my children won’t have perfect childhoods. I’m sure they’ll grow up with their own list of things I could’ve done better.

Hopefully it’s a relatively short list.

But I hope they remember that they could come to me, even when they’d messed up. That I enjoyed being their mom, even when I was simultaneously begging everyone to please leave me alone for five minutes.

And I hope my daughter remembers dancing in the kitchen to her favorite song.

Because to her, it was probably just another ordinary evening.

To me, watching it back, it was a reminder of how far I’ve come.

I spent years trying to become the kind of mom I needed when I was little.

And somewhere along the way, I became the mom who stops cleaning to dance with her daughter.

The kitchen was still a mess.

But I think I got that part right.