"Change, when it comes, cracks everything open."
Dorothy Allen

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Last Note (and I'll stop cheating now!)

This is the last note to come over from Facebook.  I really like this one.  Still.  Maybe because I am moving back to this world, of nights of just me and them.

Originally posted Tuesday, June 8, 2010.

I watch my babies sleeping...

Tonight, it's just me and them.

I move from room to room. Sawyer, as messy and active asleep as she is when she is awake. Flip flopping, she kicks her blankets down, lets her bottle slip down and soak her pillow. I straighten, tuck in, clean up. I smooth her crazy hair down and out of her eyes. Just looking at her makes my heart ache.

Everyone says she is truly my daughter. That makes me proud, and scares the living shit out of me. I don't want her to live my life. But I can see the amazing potential in her. I worry already about the situations she will put herself in. Her heart will be broken. Since she is so much like me, she will feel so much, and so deeply. She will have days where getting up is the hardest thing she has ever done. She will have days where she doesn't think she can go on.

I pledge to myself to teach her- how to deal with the thoughts and feelings that overwhelm. To be confident and not bend. The dangers of settling for "good enough". How to fight. How to play nice. How to be a girl, and to never need a man.

She sighs in her sleep.

I move to Sebastian. He has fallen asleep in my bed again. Eventually, I will move him, but for now, he is fine. He has the remote control tucked tight in his fist. His obsessions even infect his sleep.

I don't think about the future with Sebastian. Not any further than a few months. He is my moment, my present, my here and now. My worries with him are missing the moments, the glimpses, the breakthroughs. Where is the benefit in knowing that he will likely never bring home a girlfriend? That I won't attend his high school graduation, or see him off to college? That I won't have a mother-son dance at his wedding, or hold a grandbaby that looks just like him? Those are useless thoughts, and they have no place here.

Here, right here. Warm breath, soft breathing, a mind finally at rest. That is important. That is my focus.

As I finish up my day to day, my mind is split, focused here and now, and planning and worrying about then.

And as I finally lay down, to rest my own weary head, I feel a nudge. The dog. He lays down beside me, almost as long. He rests his head on my arm, and licks my face. He trusts me, and tells me so, in his way, before settling in to sleep.

He makes me happy. And he is someone, something I don't have to worry about.

And for a change, that's nice.
Oh, I miss her being this small.
My furry baby

Don't look directly into his eyes.  He's trying to hypnotise you.

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