Becoming Real

“Real isn’t how you are made,” the Skin Horse tells the rabbit. “It’s a thing that happens to you.” — The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

About forty-five years ago, it happened to me for the first time. A tear. An inkling.  I was on the edge of a bed with two little boys, reading The Velveteen Rabbit.

I hadn’t taken a shower for days. My clothes were proof of survival, with crumbs and smudges and ketchup wiped off with a wet paper towel. As I read about a toy rabbit longing to become Real, something inside me quivered.

To better understand what was happening to me, maybe it helps to explain that I grew up in the South, Appalachia. A world of some poverty, but also a world made up of aspiring beauty queens, debutante balls, poofy hair, and practiced smiles. Shine mattered. Being admired felt important. Most of us wanted to be “somebody.” I wanted to be somebody.

Yet here I was…bedraggled, bone-tired, NOTHING like that beauty queen image... AND loved. Purposeful. I felt myself rearranging on the inside.

Here’s the exact passage that choked me up. It’s the Skin Horse explaining to the rabbit how a toy becomes Real:

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”

The quiet, drab, early months of the year offer an analogy for this kind of inner transformation. They are the in-between months, when winter still lingers and spring is only a promise. Trees look bare and ordinary, but underneath, something is happening. The world is quietly becoming new.

Aging can be like that.

It may feel as though some of the shine has rubbed off. You may not move as quickly. You may not feel as certain. You may not look the way you once did. But something deeper can be taking place beneath the surface.

Love plays a surprising role in this. When we’re young, love often gets tangled up with striving. We try to be lovable by being impressive. Strong. Capable.

But the Velveteen Rabbit offers a gentler truth. The rabbit becomes Real through closeness, through being held, through simply staying present.

It helps to have a few simple ways to stay open to becoming Real.

One practice is a question. What would the Real version of me do next? Not the polished version. The one wearing a mask. Not the impressive version. Not the version trying to prove everything is under control.

The second practice is crucial. Noticing when you chasing shine instead of choosing Love, instead of choosing Real. When you catch yourself slipping into proving and polishing, try this sentence: I don’t have to be shiny to be worthy. And you may find a bonus, stronger friendships. Let me expand on this because it seems hugely important.

An old acquaintance and new friend surprised me recently in a conversation that went something like this.

“I’m not the person people think I am. I have had to appear this mean and tough old granddad-granddog to protect my family because they are from El Salvador and often they pushed around by roughnecks. But honestly, I am worried. The world scares me right now and I don’t know what to do.”   His tenderness moved me.  The shiny was gone, the Real showed up. It was beautiful. I appreciated this deeper connection.

My husband, John, sometimes comes home from a flat meeting with someone. He says, “I just get tired of people trying to out intellectualize each other.  I want to hear their hearts.” He wants a Real-to-Real conversation, vulnerable-to-vulnerable, not shiny-to-shiny.

The final practice is learning to bless the wear instead of resenting it. Aging and becoming Real comes with wear, and some of it is painful. But some wear is proof you lived. These hands have held babies. This heart has survived grief. This body has shown up through thousands of ordinary and messy days.

That night long ago, reading The Velveteen Rabbit to my sons, I wasn’t shiny. I was tired and dirty and human. Yet I sensed a deeper beauty bubbling up, and it moved me to tears of joy.

Those quiet still winter, not yet spring remind us that the most important transformations happen quietly, often underground. The world looks plain while it is becoming new, and then one day spring arrives. Aging can be that kind of season, not a fading, but a becoming. Becoming Real.

How might we journey together to The Good Life by honoring the Real you especially during this month of love?

(And, if you’re on the young side, you can get Real inklings like I did, read the book.)

John's sister gave me the book and a rabbit at the same time, I keep the on my bookcase to help me remember to choose to be Real.