REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE KIDS AND BELIEVED WE COULD DO ANYTHING?

The saying “From the mouth of babes” is spot-on. Children don’t hold back, they really live like they mean it. Case in point, an amazing story from a CanSer Cowgirl on my blog:

My nine-year-old son and a friend were playing out front. I heard the little boy say to my son, “Your mom doesn’t look very pretty without her hair.” I cringed at how cruel kids can be (even without meaning to be). I had no idea what to expect from my son, until I heard his reply . . . “My mom is the most beautiful person on the earth, you are just looking in the wrong place. You have to be able to see her heart, and no one is more prettiful when you look there.” That moment has gotten me through many a rough day. . . .

I wish I could be so purely eloquent. Sometimes children have the sweet voice of a sage, other times they carry daggers that we continually choose to stab ourselves with even after we’ve left childhood behind.

When I was a fiercely independent knotted hair unit of the 1970s, I loved nature. It was my church. I loved to look at the sun till my eyes burned. I’d singe my corneas and then immediately look at a tree or my neighbor. Purple, green, and yellow beams of light would glow around them. I knew I was special, a chosen one, a psychic. Who else could see auras like me? I suppose anyone who blowtorched their vision could see a lot of things!

I spent every minute of the daylight exploring the world on my ribbon-flapping Huffy bike. My grandmother would light candles and say the rosary as she watched me burn down the street. “Look, Abuela, no hands!” I’d say. “Aye, niña, cuidado!” she’d bellow, followed by a string of really bad truck-driver curses in Spanish. Off I’d sail to the priest’s house to steal daffodils for my mother. Looking back, I love the contrast between my terror of getting caught by a man of the cloth and the ballsy confidence that pulsed through my veins as I crawled on my stomach mini commando style.

As I grew older, the doubt warts sprouted. Grown-ups, other kids, and the boob tube distorted my sense of self and occasionally made me feel handicapped. Yes was kidnapped by should. I played the recordings of mean girls on the playground in my head for decades. Why wouldn’t they let me wear my Underoos in peace?

Refuse to eat emotional poison.

—DON MIGUEL RUIZ

I’ll never forget being tied to Britney Clowry’s (name changed so that she doesn’t come after me again) daily whipping post. “Kristin’s so skinny she has to run around in the shower to get wet. Kristin is so ugly someone should take her down to the ASPCA and put her to sleep.” The dangerous part about it was that I started to memorize that script and make it my own. Even when I was cast as the hot chick in an indie film I worried obsessively that the producers would come to their senses and fire me. A mistake must have been made. Maybe they just hired me because I was funny. The knockouts had the personality of a bag of bolts, so naturally they needed a funny girl to counterbalance the scene.

I BET YOU CAN SEE MY MADNESS CLEARLY, BUT CAN YOU SEE YOUR OWN? LET’S STOP WASTING TIME AND START FLAUNTING AND CELEBRATING OUR PRETTIFULNESS.