Good Food for the Soul

Our daughter experienced the last day of her summer job, this past Sunday. She worked at a popular, local ice cream shop near to one of our more beloved beaches. At dinner last night, my daughter told my husband and I that what she loved most about this particular job, is that it “brought her back to herself” again. Needless to say, this perked my ears.

“I lost myself a little bit, at the end of spring semester,” she said honestly and earnestly. “And these kind, fun, full of camaraderie people whom I worked with, along with the regular, supportive customers, and the excited, happy-go-lucky vacationing out-of-towners, brought me back to my natural self.”

Our daughter is a rising sophomore at a large, competitive university. None of her closest friends from high school ended up attending this same university with her, so she had to navigate a lot on her own, this past freshman year, in an environment that sometimes felt like swimming with the sharks, to her. I told my daughter how proud I was of her, for her considerate self-awareness. I reminded her what a good lesson she has learned, and I hope that she will be able to remember it, and to apply it, for the rest of her life.

“It is healthy and important to limit interactions with people who make you feel ‘less than’, or who you are afraid to be your true self with – these are not your people,” I said to her. “How you feel around a person speaks volumes. You must be true to yourself. You will never be happy if you feel that you can’t be the authentic version of the one-and-only-you. We all get cheated when people aren’t able to be fullest and deepest and truest expression of their own unique selves. People who accept you, and love you for your own distinctive qualities are the best kind of people there are in this world. Remember to be that kind of person for other people, too.”

The ice cream shop coworkers were a hodgepodge of older, full-time managers and workers, college students from all different universities and colleges, working for the summer, and a few high school students sprinkled in for good measure. Based on the funny stories, the social events they had with each other outside of work, and the support and cooperation and consideration shown to each other during busy, bustling work nights (all things which our daughter had relayed to us throughout the summer), it became extremely evident, that this eclectic group of people made for an amazing, good-for-the-soul, mix of coworkers and friends.

Sometimes in life, when all of the individual ingredients are so wholesome and incredible on their own merit, and they come together in one spot, you end up with something like an absolutely unbeatable, unforgettable delicious hot fudge sundae. For me, the fact that my daughter learned to appreciate the goodness and the sweetness of people who make you comfortable to be fully yourself, the people who help you to bring “the you” out of you, and who celebrate you and appreciate you, is the biggest, juiciest, most delightful cherry on top, of this memorable experience, in her young adult life.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.