Last spring, I came home one weekend to get interviewed for a nannying job I wanted to do over the summer. Feeling nervous and excited, I walked into the family’s home where a little girl came running to the door with the brightest blue eyes, her nose covered in little sun-kissed freckles. Suddenly, I wasn’t worried or anxious anymore.
She reminded me so much of myself, it was truly uncanny. Ann was like the younger, more care free and fearless version of me that I used to be; the me that I missed so dearly and had long forgotten. Little did I know she would soon teach me how to be that girl again without even realizing it.
From the first day I started working for them, this little girl and I were attached at the hip, two peas in a pod practically separated at birth. Except she was eight and I was 18. She was always holding my hand and seeing what she could do to help me around the house. She would sit on my lap and play with my hair, while she would tell me how pretty I was. Needless to say, I looked far from it with my hair in a hat and a greasy ponytail, no a trace of mascara on my blonde lashes, and nothing to hide all my freckles from the sun.
She would tell me that she loved how I drive her and her brother safely to swim practice, and how I always ask them if they are buckled because they know I care about their safety. She told me how she loved when I painted her nails and read to her, made forts, watched movies with her, and made her those bacon grilled cheese sandwiches that I invented when we ran out of peanut butter and jelly one day. She noticed the little things I did for her and she appreciated them. By doing so, she taught me to appreciate the little things, too.
While it feels good to have someone look at you all day and tell you how pretty, funny, fun, and awesome you are, and how they want to be just like you when they get older, I realized that the reason she thought I was so beautiful is not because of my beauty on the outside, but because of how beautiful and priceless she knew me to be on the inside.
She appreciated how patient and caring I was with her. She appreciated my ability to be compassionate and understanding with her when she made a mistake or a mess. She saw me for who I was, and thought what she saw was beautiful. I have such a heart for working with children because they are so fearlessly honest and bold. There’s something beautiful about having the ability to say what you really think and how you truly feel. I envy them for that. As the summer went on, I became more confident in myself and I started to appreciate the qualities that I overlooked before. She taught me to look at myself the way she looked at me, simply beautiful on the inside and on the outside.
Being her nanny taught me so much. She taught me what it felt like to have a purpose – to be needed by somebody who wasn’t a boy or a best girl friend my age, but my little friend who looked at everything like it was an awesome and fun-filled adventure. She may only be eight years old, but I think that girl has taught me just as much as I have taught her, if not more. Thanks AP, for helping me to see how much love I have to give. Thanks for helping me realize how spontaneous and fun I am. Thanks for making me realize that my compassion for others and patience is a gift. Thanks for helping me to feel needed and truly loved when no one else could make me feel that way. You might be too little to understand right now, but you fixed a very broken me and made me into a confident secure, wildly passionate, patient, understanding, compassionate, driven, better, more positive, spontaneous me. You aren’t just an eight year old, but my little friend who brings out the best in everyone she meets.
