Week 3/ October 18-24 - Page 3

[SPOTTO]

Birthday party...

Today’s my birthday. I didn’t have a party, but then I didn’t really want one. It’s not a big birthday, 36. I’d like to have parties for the biggies, 40 & 50 but today is just another day. So why do I feel sad? Maybe because it really is just another day. Maybe because I still had to do the dishes, do the laundry and take care of the baby while my husband did work around the house. Maybe I don’t need a party, but I wish I could have felt like a princess again if only for a fleeting moment. Life has turned out differently than I dreamed. It’s not bad, just different. I guess sometimes you sacrifice one thing for another, I don’t know. I do know that while I have this beautiful baby girl, I have never felt so alone. I felt alone in my pregnancy. My husband never told me I looked beautiful, in fact, he joked that I looked like a beached whale. Giving birth, even though we took a birthing class, I felt totally alone, my husband just standing there holding my hand while I screamed and pushed with everything I had in me. And now, staying home and raising her, sometimes I feel like a single mother. He works so hard for us, but sometimes his priority is work over family. So whey should I be surprised that today, my birthday, is no different than any other day. A birthday party would have been fun, but I guess I didn’t really want one or I would have organized it myself. Instead, I’m sitting here writing, my baby asleep at my breast and belly, snugged up in the soft carrier, trying to find ways to make myself grow and be a better person while my surroundings never really change. It’s just another day.

[SPOTTO]

Tiny hands...

Tiny hands, palms pressed against mine. It’s a picture I’ve wanted my husband to take before her tiny hands get much bigger. Though so tiny, there is a strange power to them.

Tiny hands have learned to reach around my neck and pull on the stray hairs when she is in the throws of a crying fit. How did she figure that out so quickly? How do I get a four month old, who doesn’t understand she’s hurting Mommy, to stop without yelling at her. Certainly not the solution! I keep removing her tiny hand hoping over time she’ll understand.

Tiny hands with tiny nails that grow so fast! Oh how scary it was to clip them for the first time! I still don’t like doing it, but I’ve gotten bolder and can get it done more quickly without drawing blood!

Tiny hands touch my face when I kiss her belly and she giggles her newfound giggle. I love that sound!

Tiny hands pull at my clothes when she nurses. Sometimes it’s a gentle pulling; sometimes she really yanks at them. Discovering her own strength.

Tiny hands, so kissable. How I love her tiny hands.

[sagira]

Brown Eyes

Brown eyes

Wide, long-lashed and almond-shaped. That’s what your brown eyes look like.
When I look into your brown eyes I feel a sense of trepidation. You depend on me for everything. I am your first view of the world. If I see sadness in those expressive brown eyes, I wish to cloak you and smooth your feathers. When I look into your brown eyes I feel lost. I’m lost in a sea of innocence, of determination, of new personhood gleaming brighter than any new car.
When I look into your brown eyes, I’m surprised at the depth of my feelings. At the how far in the distance they go (infinity) and what I could do for you. More than anything in the world, I fear losing you. I fear losing you more than I fear losing my own life. Although, I do fear that too (very much) because you would lose me. And you need me. And nobody loves you and understands you more than I do. I fear losing you not only in body, but in spirit or heart. I feel a deep sense of connection with you. With you and your brown eyes.
When I look into your brown eyes, I feel a sense of joy and pride. You are my son, part of me, and yet none of me. Part of my husband and our love, yet someone completely new from anything and anyone created before. You are God’s creation and my longing.
When I look into your brown eyes, I see the man you’re going to become. I see the person whom I helped and influenced, guided and accepted. I see you!
I love you, Brown Eyes

[MountainMamaOf2]

What I know now.....

What I know now......

is to take things more easily and breathe, enjoy the ride....aaahhh.....breathe again, and again....

When we visited my grandparents the first time after my daughter was born, we drove almost an hour and a half, quite a journey in the early days! Five months old, my Nana and Papa were of course delighted to see her and hold her!
(And hear all about her latest accomplishments...)
My Nana (in spite of her arthritis) had crocheted this beautiful colorful blanket of green-pink-yellow-and-blue for Courtney,
and a pretty little white sweater
"almost too small" and still wearing it, two years later.

It was on that visit that my Papa said to me, "I can't believe you didn't go to New York to pursue the theater."
I had to say something for myself, gently from my heart.
I knew this was his way of saying, "I love you. I'm proud of you, you're talented! I thought for sure you'd do it!
Why not?" And if I had heard him say such a thing years earlier, perhaps I would have...gone...despite my fears of moving 3,000 miles away at such a young age. I told him I loved my singing and acting, doing the musicals, commercials and plays as I was growing up. AND being a mom was my dream come true above the rest. I exclaimed, "That was years ago!" (yet still happily pondered the thought and bet him... I'll be in the theater, again. Someday. I was called upon by my grandfather to share from my heart, how much I loved being a mom, the Stay at Home Mom I always wanted to Be!

During this visit, my Papa also opened himself up to me,
in another way he never had before. He began sharing about
his younger days with my grandmother; how they drove out to California just 17 and 22 years old, with not much money yet how they did it. He spoke of the trip with a smile on his face and I could see the young man--carefree, in love and happy.

Little did any of us know that just two years later, this summer, I'd be doing the same. But driving the other way. He cautioned me and said, "California's the best state! You won't find another quite so good to live in!" Yet when I got vulnerable with him, and asked about his being concerned for me, he relaxed and said, "Yeah, I want the best for you. I want you to be happy." I smiled contentedly. (When I got here, my papa said, "how beautiful North Carolina must be..."

I was always close with my grandmother, an amazing woman.
Full of compassion and love, and very beautiful. My grandparents had divorced 'back in the days' when you didn't hear about that quite so much. It was the year my mom graduated from high school and ironically, got married herself.
I never knew until that day, two years ago, what had happened or how my grandfather had felt. I learned of the day he walked in on my grandmother at work, having lunch with her boss and his touching her knee...and her laughing giddily. Lo and behold, My grandma, had fallen in love with another man! It seemed so adventurous, and daring of her...
yet I imagined she fell madly in love with him (My grampa!),
to risk it all! She never spoke of what had happened other than that Papa was "always at the theater, watching movies for hours and never home"... yet what she did say that this time, she was married "til death do us part". Looking back, I can remember seeing sadness in my grandmother's face as she spoke, and was looking down, touching her wedding ring.

Papa was sharing his feelings as a younger man, a father of three, the heartbreak and the tragedy.
He was being real with me. He opened up his heart; through all the layers, I could feel and see, understand so much. Going different ways can be harmonious and amicable yet still can cut so deep. I now understood why my Papa often said, when I was growing up, that he didn't want to go (to the play, to my voice recital...) if she was going to be there.
It's amazing how not just one generation can be hurt by not reconciling and moving on. They both had found a new love that fit them so well....

I have known my grandfather to be a kind and loving man. Though in the last few years, he's had times of anger, bitterness, becoming unglued!

What do I know now? What we may not feel at one time in our lives could very well creep up on us. It's a natural part of life to sort through, contemplate,
reflect, learn, grow... My papa is nearly 85 years old...and perhaps the anger he felt half his lifetime ago
came around to be let go. My papa wasn't trying to teach me 'something', he was opening himself up and I learned....
the time is NOW, say your truth.

I have only myself to live with and look back on the journey with. It's frightening and it's liberating. The Truth.

[Tanya Taylor]

Thank you

Thank you. Please move on to Week 4.