By Sara Springer 
My Spotify playlist is a thing of car rides, and because I have five kids who partake in (what feels like) 17 activities, we are allllways riding in a car.
Our drives are spent flipping between various playlists. We take turns playing “Carpool Karaoke” and crooning to our favorite tunes.
On this particular day (in the recent present) my #5 chose Ocean Eyes. She is on a bit of a Billie Eilish kick and, as a result, we’ve spent a good portion of time funding Billie’s career.
Anyway.
As I was listening to the chorus, I thought,
Man, do I love me a blazing blue eye (I mean who doesn’t). And I am not saying I married my husband based on the fact that he has baby blues, but suffice it to say he does.
And because sometimes my thoughts unwittingly come out of my mouth, I audibly mutter-sighed: “Awwwwww. Your dad has ocean eyes,” and my #4 responded with a look so tormented, it could only be described as disgust.
As I was processing the trauma I accidentally imparted upon her, I realized her father may be my sweetheart, but he’s her dad.
Now, I am an over thinker (despite my tendency to think without speaking), so naturally I started thinking over that fact, and isn’t it something how one person can be so many different things to so many different people?
I guess the thing about this adult gig is we divvy up our personality into different compartments. We determine which part of our personality will make an appearance based on which role we are fulfilling.
Maybe we are parents or partners or professionals, and that’s not an all-inclusive list, but I like the ring the “p” theme has, so for the purpose of this essay, it is.
And I guess the thing about roles is we usually fill one at a time. Maybe we put our creative parts to the side when we’re in the corporate mindset, and maybe we wear our brave faces when we are parenting, and perhaps our vulnerable side takes a backseat when we’re socializing, and so on and so forth.
There seem to be so few times when we can just be our whole selves. Our whole, authentic, messy, scared, unsure, clever, funny, inappropriate, sarcastic, too much for the wrong person or the wrong role, selves.
Overthinking isn’t the only “over” I have mastered.
I also overwhelm with the best of them.
And oftentimes I am overcome with stress and aggravation and impatience and annoyance and basically I am a peach of a person when I’m not playing a role.
There is only one person who has ever seen all the overs and unders I offer—and that person is my husband, annnnnd now we circle back to the Ocean Eyes reference.
Whew. Takes me a minute to make a point, but here it comes.
I may have implanted an unpleasant core memory into my daughter’s psyche, but I took a moment to feel the gratitude of doing life with a person in whose eyes I can get lost and who has looked into mine and loves me anyway.
And then I took another moment to wish a silent wish.
May we all find the person (or people) who, when they look into our eyes, see all the things an ocean has to offer: strength, peace, and perhaps most importantly, the possibility we possess deep within us.
Originally published on the author’s blog
by Amy Weatherly 
