There is something terrible that comes with parenthood. Tied up within the absolutely heart-bursting goodness that is, for instance, observing your little boy digging through his dad's wrench set while singing a high pitched rendition of, You are So Beautiful, is the buried awareness of exactly what there is to lose.
I wanted to touch him like he was a bunny, a kitten, something so special and soft your fingertips can't leave it alone. The universe was good because he was in it.
Nothing is simple when you love someone this much. Nothing is neat when you’re this needed. Life doesn’t stop because you’ve given birth. A new life begins and you own it and make it yours.
Is it okay with you that you blow off your writing, or whatever your creative/spiritual calling, because your priority is to go to the gym or do yoga five days a week? Would you give us one of those days back, to play or study poetry? To have an awakening? Have you asked yourself lately, "How alive am I willing to be?" It's all going very quickly. It's mid-May, for God's sake. Who knew. I thought it was late February.
Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you're 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn't go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It's going to break your heart. Don't let this happen.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
My nightmares are usually about losing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here.
It's okay to be sad for as long as you need to be and then it's okay to not be so sad.
