The Key Has Always Been You

🌸 Becoming Lu Again

Somewhere along the way, I lost my play.

I’ve spent the past week journaling, reflecting, sitting with memories — mine, others’, the ones blurred at the edges. I couldn’t quite name when I stopped playing, or if I ever really started. There’s this aching curiosity in me, a longing to know — was play ever mine? The answers are murky, wrapped in memories that don’t always feel like mine.

Two childhood friends once told me how my mother never wanted me to get dirty. Their words landed like stones in still water. Was that true? Was that memory theirs — or mine? Did I take on their version of my story because mine was too hazy, too hidden? The little girl inside me just remembers feeling like every other little girl or boy playing in the fields, wild and free. A kid who could run barefoot and fall in the dirt without fear of being scolded. Or was this my imagination? Was this the blurred lines that would eventually tuck LuLu away?

That memory — or lack of it — created a quiet fracture in me. A disconnect between me and joy, spontaneity, freedom. It didn’t just vanish in childhood, it followed me into motherhood.

🕊 The Big Ask

In 2021, I reached out to both of my children and asked, “Did I play with you?”

One answered yes — said I brought the fun, the laughter, the memories, the magic.

The other said no — that I never actually played.

And both were right.

That big ask will never be forgotten and in fact turned into a yardstick where I measured myself as their Mom.

I created birthdays with jumping castles and camping trips. We had adventures with water parks, Medieval Times, plane rides, cruise ships, even my Brady Bunch dream of driving them across country and through the Grand Canyon — all the things I wished I’d had. My own childhood didn’t include birthday parties for me or my siblings. I watched other kids be celebrated and so I silently promised my children — they would know what it felt like to be seen, cherished, and delighted in. I promised they were going to remember their birthdays and I poured into them the joy I craved. 

But I see now, I was creating containers for their play, not mine. I didn’t know how to include myself in it.

💔 Grieving the Mother, Not Just the Child

I was mothering from the ache of the child I still was.

I now realize I never really learned how to play the way my soul longed to. And so, I mothered as the little girl who never got to be her full, wild, whimsical self.

As I write this, the tears come — not for the little girl who didn’t get to play but for the mother who still longs to feel what it’s like to truly play.

To be free.

To be silly.

To be safe.

That realization — it brings tears. Not just for the child I was, but for the mother I became. The woman who gave her children the world while quietly wondering what it would have felt like to receive it. I have been grieving the mother, not just the child.

Last week, I went to a quiet beach. No one in sight. I told myself, it was time to try to play, to dance and to skip. It was time for me to be silly. But even there, alone, I kept looking over my shoulder. As if someone might appear. As if joy had to hide. As if LuLu wasn’t safe to be seen.

And then I remembered her name.

LuLu.

🌼 The Return of LuLu

There was a time I was called LuLu — a name soaked in love and warmth. She was me once, sweet, silly, radiant and loved. I was named after the comic strip Little LuLu. 

(Louise "Little Lulu" Moppet) is the main character and Tubby and Annie's best friend. She is very smart, but stubborn and always initiates a battle with the boys to show that the girls are as good as them. Lulu is also very creative and tells stories to Alvin to teach him a lesson with fun. 

Then one day, many of the people who called me LuLu quietly started disappearing. My grandparents, my Aunt Joan, my Mom and many others. Eventually the couple of siblings that called me Lu, stopped calling me Lu. The little girl inside of me continued to fade into the family photographs, as did the old comic strip.

I have been tapping into my inner child over the years and it is becoming abundantly clear, it is time to invite my magic back in. My Little LuLu, who has been hidden deep within, is surfacing. I have no choice but to go back in, because she is the key to getting her back.

Years later, when we got a new dog, my kids wanted to name her LuLu. I hesitated. I feared being judged or seen as arrogant. My Mom and my Aunt were still alive and what would they think? My siblings, my friends would never understand. But my children said yes, and in time, that little dog gave me something I didn’t know I needed. Strangely enough she gave LuLu back to me — with her unconditional love, her innocence, her silly spark, and that nickname I once held. A living reminder of the girl who still lived inside me, waiting to be remembered.

💖 Reclaiming Joy

Now, I’m ready.

To be Lu again.

To be LuLu.

To let LuLu live and breathe — not as a memory, but as a way of being.

To invite her back into my life — not as a ghost of the past, but as the heartbeat of my present. The joy. The warmth. The playful spark. The soft, glowing inner child who just wants to dance, to giggle, to skip without glancing over her shoulder.

I want to bring play back into my life but with less proving, and more feeling. I don’t want to shrink my spirit because I’ve outgrown versions of myself. I want to  remember that version and I want to be LuLu again.

The fun may look different. But play… play can still live here. It can be reimagined.

LuLu is waiting to be rebirthed.

And this time, I say yes.

So if you ever see me signing as LuLu, know this —

It’s not just a signature.

It’s a soul remembering itself.

It’s my heart remembering who she really is, who I really am.

It’s love.

It’s me.

It’s Lu.

Welcome home, little one.

Little LuLu, aka Patrice