(no subject)
" You've never known pain like I can bring. But you have never known love like I can feel. I can promise you that. Because there is no pain like this love."
Today I feel this more than usually. Do other parents go through this? Is it that I've defined my life via this person? I don't think I have words to express the fear of loving someone so totally. My little person is great great big. I watch every second of his days, the way everything is new, and I drink it like a tonic. I am only too aware of how thinly draped is this veil, this ephemeral mist that is everything I have and am. I clutch it with my actual being, I know how easily it could be torn away. I live my life between uplifting joy and paralyzing fear.
I can handle the fact that my mom will die within 5 years. I watch her do it to herself daily. I picture myself as a lung, I feel myself grow heavy and turn to coal and lead, and then I'm molten. Melting. I'm need, I'm memories of need. I'm a little grownup. I'm cold and small and I've melted here and frozen into a shadow of my own self.
Bammy. Waiting for him with all those lights and noise and whir. People in and out of my room. I'm within myself, shouting through a cardboard tube at the rest of the world and nobody can hear me. How can I do this?? Of all the noises that blend into that cocktail of atmosphere, I wouldn't have missed any. I didn't know I'd never stopped hearing the quick, steady chirp that was his heart. Until it stopped. Then all I COULD hear was that chirp, slowing down. Forget inside of myself. I was more than myself. I was the whole room. I was a giant. I was the boss. I was the one reflected in my mother's eyes. I was the one responsible, my body was failing to sustain this separate soul. Suddenly he was so separate. Then some alarms, and I crack in half and there he was and I was back at the other end of the tube. It took me some time to feel it. Several strange days. I was hollow, I was underwater. Then he was real, he was here, and he was me. That, ladies, is what breastfeeding does.
When he was tiny, he slept with me, in my arms. He was one week old when he stopped breathing. I woke up and looked down at him. I stirred, he didn't stir. I gathered him to me in the way that only mothers do and only when bringing a baby to their breast. He was limp. I stood up. I don't know, it was one motion. Up,under the light. I had one hand behind his head. He was so tiny and froggy. He was Bill Cosby's lizard. I shouted his name. He inhaled and became real again, and I have never been me since. I didn't put him down for the next 5 months. He slept on my chest. When he napped alone, I stood outside the door and listened. While all around me everyone else was having parties, and Brandon's dad says his life hasn't changed at all since having a child. I try to radiate anger in a sphere, coming out of me from all sides and around, away from my son. Not our son. My. Son. How can you not feel this? When he was sick, his first fever, I slept on the floor beside the crib, holding his hand.
And here I am and I fight about him and I talk about him and I read about him and I live without him, and he's a whole nother person. And now the promise of a person IS a person. And the fear now is even deeper. It's in the way I know how he will be. How I can see his face, as I pull up to school to pick him up. I already know exactly how he will look when he turns, and sees me, and runs. Grins like he's going to bite me. Hugs me and throws his head back and coos and laughs. Then in an hour he'll get that glint in his eye after dinner. He'll look at me and I'll look at him, and he'll follow some unspoken signal and turn around and run. And I'll toddle behind him, "I'm gonna get yoooou" and he'll shriek and giggle and shrug his shoulders and tuck his chin and wait to be tickled. And he's happy and I'm giving him a happy feeling and I feel worthwhile. And he gets in trouble and he cries and he shouts and he misbehaves. And I fight with him, these ridiculous little power struggles. He goes to bed and I want to weep from the exhaustion of my day. And for one gut wrenching second I remember that it could end. that something could happen and it could go away. And I can't breathe and my heart tries to stop. I am so scared and there it is.
I don't know any other people who have expressed it to me. So does everyone somehow share this fear? What is in your life that dialates your pupils? What's your livelihood?
I probably won't even post this, but I was feeling so rushed by things today. I feel like a riptide and am minus the swell.
I continue to live within myself and I am waiting for an excuse to withdraw. I forget that you read this. And I already know what will happen. I should hire a bookie, but nobody's betting with these odds.
Today I feel this more than usually. Do other parents go through this? Is it that I've defined my life via this person? I don't think I have words to express the fear of loving someone so totally. My little person is great great big. I watch every second of his days, the way everything is new, and I drink it like a tonic. I am only too aware of how thinly draped is this veil, this ephemeral mist that is everything I have and am. I clutch it with my actual being, I know how easily it could be torn away. I live my life between uplifting joy and paralyzing fear.
I can handle the fact that my mom will die within 5 years. I watch her do it to herself daily. I picture myself as a lung, I feel myself grow heavy and turn to coal and lead, and then I'm molten. Melting. I'm need, I'm memories of need. I'm a little grownup. I'm cold and small and I've melted here and frozen into a shadow of my own self.
Bammy. Waiting for him with all those lights and noise and whir. People in and out of my room. I'm within myself, shouting through a cardboard tube at the rest of the world and nobody can hear me. How can I do this?? Of all the noises that blend into that cocktail of atmosphere, I wouldn't have missed any. I didn't know I'd never stopped hearing the quick, steady chirp that was his heart. Until it stopped. Then all I COULD hear was that chirp, slowing down. Forget inside of myself. I was more than myself. I was the whole room. I was a giant. I was the boss. I was the one reflected in my mother's eyes. I was the one responsible, my body was failing to sustain this separate soul. Suddenly he was so separate. Then some alarms, and I crack in half and there he was and I was back at the other end of the tube. It took me some time to feel it. Several strange days. I was hollow, I was underwater. Then he was real, he was here, and he was me. That, ladies, is what breastfeeding does.
When he was tiny, he slept with me, in my arms. He was one week old when he stopped breathing. I woke up and looked down at him. I stirred, he didn't stir. I gathered him to me in the way that only mothers do and only when bringing a baby to their breast. He was limp. I stood up. I don't know, it was one motion. Up,under the light. I had one hand behind his head. He was so tiny and froggy. He was Bill Cosby's lizard. I shouted his name. He inhaled and became real again, and I have never been me since. I didn't put him down for the next 5 months. He slept on my chest. When he napped alone, I stood outside the door and listened. While all around me everyone else was having parties, and Brandon's dad says his life hasn't changed at all since having a child. I try to radiate anger in a sphere, coming out of me from all sides and around, away from my son. Not our son. My. Son. How can you not feel this? When he was sick, his first fever, I slept on the floor beside the crib, holding his hand.
And here I am and I fight about him and I talk about him and I read about him and I live without him, and he's a whole nother person. And now the promise of a person IS a person. And the fear now is even deeper. It's in the way I know how he will be. How I can see his face, as I pull up to school to pick him up. I already know exactly how he will look when he turns, and sees me, and runs. Grins like he's going to bite me. Hugs me and throws his head back and coos and laughs. Then in an hour he'll get that glint in his eye after dinner. He'll look at me and I'll look at him, and he'll follow some unspoken signal and turn around and run. And I'll toddle behind him, "I'm gonna get yoooou" and he'll shriek and giggle and shrug his shoulders and tuck his chin and wait to be tickled. And he's happy and I'm giving him a happy feeling and I feel worthwhile. And he gets in trouble and he cries and he shouts and he misbehaves. And I fight with him, these ridiculous little power struggles. He goes to bed and I want to weep from the exhaustion of my day. And for one gut wrenching second I remember that it could end. that something could happen and it could go away. And I can't breathe and my heart tries to stop. I am so scared and there it is.
I don't know any other people who have expressed it to me. So does everyone somehow share this fear? What is in your life that dialates your pupils? What's your livelihood?
I probably won't even post this, but I was feeling so rushed by things today. I feel like a riptide and am minus the swell.
I continue to live within myself and I am waiting for an excuse to withdraw. I forget that you read this. And I already know what will happen. I should hire a bookie, but nobody's betting with these odds.