Where we’ve been

Exactly one month from today I will be the mother of a child who technically isn’t.  At eighteen, she’ll be legal to vote and gamble and get pierced.  {One of these things is not like the others…}.  Don’t think she doesn’t plan to take full advantage of that last one.  Her heart desires a navel ring, which doesn’t necessarily thrill me, but if that’s the worst of it then so be it.  Oh yes.  Yes, I have come a long way with the letting go.

I don’t have as many pictures as I should because during an insanely stupid hour of frustration I threw away hundreds of candid shots that didn’t live up to my expectations.  They were blurry or the lighting was bad or she wasn’t looking at the camera anyway and I literally threw hundreds of photos and their negatives into the trash can.  I’m left with so few images of the blonde pixie of a girl who came along one day and charted my course anew.  I threw them away.

And now I hold her in this open palm and I kid myself really when I say I hold her.  She comes and she goes and she will or she won’t but really it’s not up to me.  I mean yes I can take the electronics or the keys or whatever but here we are and I’m in this place where my guidance is but a fleeting suggestion that I hope will stick.

When you have a pink bundle in your arms and she’s rooting and cooing and wrapping the whole of her hand around your teensiest finger, it’s hard to believe there will ever come a day when she won’t look at you with those same big, trusting eyes.  It’s harder still to believe that all those moments will breeze past, carrying away missed opportunities like dandelion petals.  But it does and they do.

I have a lifetime left to be her mom and I wouldn’t trade the undiscovered for the world.  But still, I miss where we’ve been.

{Just Write}