Dear Beautiful Girl-
You are sleeping.
You are sleeping, and I’m torn between doing nothing or doing something or maybe doing both – I am so accustomed now to the you-tending, being free of you momentarily births a little crisis in my mind. I have to sit myself down and debate myself into a decision, knowing all the while that I’m ticking away precious minutes trying to decide how to spend precious minutes and good Lord you are going to wake up any minute and didn’t I have a cup of coffee around here somewhere? Bueller?
You are sleeping, and I have decided to write you a letter.
Today, I asked you to get your Not a Box book off the shelf, and you looked at me quizzically for a moment, then shifted thoughtful eyes to your books, crawled over, pondered, chose, and returned to place the requested book in my hands. So much is happening in your mind that I can’t imagine – there is so much that you know that I simply haven’t discovered, simply haven’t asked you the right questions. I wonder if you grow tired of having the same things explained to you again and again, if you’re already so many miles ahead of me and just not quite sure how to form the words.
This is not a letter about anything, really, except that you are sleeping.
Last week some doctors cut pieces out of me that were left over from the time they grew along side you. The cysts keep getting larger in my doctor’s telling – first they were golf balls, then lemons, today oranges as she demonstrated their size with her oddly avian fingers. The stuff of legend, those cysts. I couldn’t hold you, really, for days after they took them. I missed you more than I thought you could miss a person as she sits next to you, demanding to be read to again and again and again and always and never enough.
Why are you sitting in that box? It’s not a box. In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon…
I hope you know. I hope you always know, the days I pay too much attention to my phone and my laptop, the days I wince as happy morning toes meet tired surgical scars, the days I am napping on the couch and lost to you while someone else reads page after page after page, the days I am just so tired and so frustrated and so terrible at this, the days I am selfish and impatient and bored, the days I forget for a moment that this is, actually, everything I’ve ever wanted – I hope you always know you are the best thing I’ve ever done.
You are sleeping. I am resting, and I am not sorry. But when you wake up – I’ve never been happier to see anyone than I am today to see you, beautiful girl. Every day. I hope you know.
love.
fable knows and is going to continue to know how loved she is because you make it so evident. i can’t wait til she can read all these one day 🙂
Me toooo!!
I don’t know if you remember or not, but that’s the same thing I used to say to you (about being the best thing I ever did – well you AND Katelyn of course). It made me sniff hearing/reading reiterations of that incredible-ness.
At the end of our lives I wonder how many people really wish they’d “worked at their job more”. I suspect not many. We are busy by nature. Our paradigm has changed, but our nature remains the same. That said, our greatest work yields our greatest legacy. I’m proud to have you.
And then my Annie and my daddy went and made me cry. Circle completed. 🙂 Love you.
I stumbled across your blog today with your post on 10 things about the first year, and now I’ve spent the last 15 minutes sobbing my heart out. Because, you said it. All of it. All those crazy thoughts and feelings and struggles and craziness that I haven’t been able to express. I have two beautiful girls, a three year old and a 14 month old. And I am so grateful to stay at home with them. And I feel trapped. And I feel blessed and privileged. And I feel desperate. And I wouldn’t change a thing, except, you know, for those times when I’m inches away from crazy and it leaks out a bit onto my babies. Thank goodness for my husband, and a few good friends, and my mom. And now, you. Because I’m going to read your posts over and over to not feel alone, to share with the people when I can’t find the words myself. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
You are so absolutely not alone. And I’m really glad you’re here. Love.
Wow, that made me cry, how lovely. I always think i should write my daughter a letter of some sort but can never put into words how i feel. Maybe i should just go for it and say it all from the heart.
I just discovered your blog, love it 🙂