Under Construction- "Hard Hat" {part 1 of 3} (Roxy)
When I was four years old my mom took me to the Mishawaka /Penn Public Library for story time. I recall sitting criss-cross applesauce on a purple carpet square feeling a little unsure of myself. I couldn’t read yet. I didn’t know any of the other kids. I had no idea what a librarian was, but this lady appeared to be in charge. I heard her say, “Good morning boys and girls! I’m glad to see everyone is wearing their thinking caps today.” We all looked around at one another with puzzled expressions. No person in the library was wearing a hat (or cap) of any kind, yet the librarian had all of us convinced that we were wearing “thinking caps.”
As adults, we still wear our thinking caps, and several other hats as well. The term “wearing hats” is often used to describe all of the different roles we play in life. Sometimes we wear one hat really well. It fits us just right and becomes part of our daily attire, our character, and even our identity. Other times we wear multiple hats, taking them off and putting them back on depending on the circumstance. Maybe we wear one hat for mother, and another for daughter. One for wife, sister, friend, employee, or volunteer. No matter what hat we are wearing at any given time, there’s a whole closet full of other hats we may need to change into quickly. Sometimes just thinking about all these hats can be exhausting, other times it can be rewarding.
As a mother my favorite hat to wear is the one of a nurturer, but so often I find myself tearing it off and replacing it with the less attractive hat of disciplinarian. If you have more than one child you definitely know what it’s like to wear a referee’s cap. That one can be heavy...So many hats!
One of the biggest challenges is when we try to wear multiple hats at once and attempt to balance them on top of our heads without letting any of them fall. We ALL do this! And no matter how many different hats we wear that are obvious to the world, we each wear another “invisible hat” underneath. It’s called the hard hat.
Yes, the hard hat. Often it is yellow or orange in color. Bright, so it stands out in a crowd of busy workers. It’s evident that whoever is wearing the hard hat needs to be protected, because they are vulnerable; moving through, or sometimes standing in a construction zone. The people wearing the hard hats are the ones doing the work. As humans we are always “under construction” working to shape ourselves, build our character, form our inner circles, and reinforce our beliefs. It’s a natural step in our maturity, yet we still tend to hide these hard hats from others. I hide my hard hat by placing several others on top of it. I don’t think I’m alone.
We are so good at busying ourselves. We parent, entertain, network, and volunteer to the point that no one notices we are also making the necessary repairs on ourselves, often on our hearts. We cruise through life wearing a smile, checking off the to-do list; appearing to have it all together, when really we don’t. And that’s okay! From the outside we try to make it seem that we can balance it all even standing on one leg, but the reality is we just can’t do that. We can’t possibly balance all the hats without one (or 2 or 3) falling off. This is when it becomes so important as human beings to show our hard hats. Let our friends know that our to-do lists don’t always get completed, and we don’t have it all together… but we are trying our best under our given circumstances. No need to hide it...
Rock the hard hat!
