Life in Color

Instead of selling something as a fundraiser, our elementary school simply asks for donations. They have small rewards for those kids whose families donate and there are class and grade rewards based on how much money each raises. At the end of the donation period, they hold a color run at the school. They make it into kind of a mini carnival with food trucks, refreshments, and bounce houses. The color run itself is free and all the students are invited to participate whether their family donates or not, so it is really just a fun event for the entire school.

Although Malia was anxious to meet up with her friends and hang out at the school, she wasn’t very excited about the actual color run this year. She didn’t think she was going to do it and told us that she was just planning to spend time with her groupies. I was hoping that she would change her mind though. She is a sixth grader this year and this will be the last chance she has to participate in this specific event. I know that in a lot of ways she feels like she has outgrown the elementary school, but I’m don’t want her to have any regrets about things later on. I want her to feel like she has taken advantage of every opportunity that interests her and that she had a great year. So I encouraged her to wear her school provided white t-shirt just in case. I was pleased when she did, giving her reason as, “Why not?”

An hour later, Kev sent me a picture of Malia multicolored and pleased as punch. She decided to participate in the color run, just as I had hoped. And she had a great time. In fact, she said that doing the color run totally made up for the lack of mud at the mud run. That’s one thing that I love about Malia. She has faced a variety of disappointments in her life, as we all do, but as she moves forward and has other experiences, she allows the joy of the opportunities she does have to shake off the disappointment. In essence, she lets go of the sorrow and allows joy to grow in its place. 

I’m so proud of this tendency she has to “accentuate the positive.” As a family we have talked a lot over the past few years about looking for and focusing on the good and I feel like Malia is taking that to heart. It has served her well up to this point and having an optimistic outlook will be enormously beneficial throughout her life.