It's our last Friday here in Guinea, and while storm clouds gather and threaten our planned walk, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that Zoe is sleeping through the night for the first time ever and blog a little early. I can't promise that this will be anything coherent; she might have slept, but this mama was wide awake most of the night. Thanks for that one, Murphy.
If you want to join in with this amazing group of freewriters, head over to Lisa-Jo Baker's blog. Mama friends, you should probably just click through anyway, whether or not you're planning to write, because she has so much truth and wisdom to share, that woman.
Today's prompt: Imagine.
Go.
Yesterday marked the end of an era around here. The ship's horn blew as a young woman climbed into a Land Rover and headed for the airport after eighteen years of life on board. The dock was crammed with people, lining up to wave her off, and as Zoe nestled her head into my chest in the afternoon heat, I could see her, my daughter, walking away from me just like that.
It takes guts to be a mama. It takes an almost unimaginable bravery to gather up all your hope and all your longing and all your love and set it to spinning like a top outside the safety of your own arms. I used to dream about these days when I was a child myself, just waiting to spend my life as the caretaker of another.
And now here I am and it's everything and nothing like I imagined.
She is nine months old and in five minutes she'll be eighteen, waving goodbye and embarking on her own adventures, and somehow the years in between will be gone. My thoughts are all over the place this morning. I want to run into her room, scoop her up and hold her close, but I know that she'll cry to be put down, eager to explore the world around her. I've been begging her to sleep through the night; last night she did, and all I can think is that I miss that blissful half hour where I hold her in the dark after she eats and she's warm and soft and plastered to my body, part of me again in a way she'll never allow when she's awake.
I've spent a lifetime waiting for her life, and I can't let it pass me by in a haze of early mornings and fractured nights. I want her to look back, eight or eighteen or eighty years down the road, and see nothing but my love for her.
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If you want to join in with this amazing group of freewriters, head over to Lisa-Jo Baker's blog. Mama friends, you should probably just click through anyway, whether or not you're planning to write, because she has so much truth and wisdom to share, that woman.
Today's prompt: Imagine.
Go.
Yesterday marked the end of an era around here. The ship's horn blew as a young woman climbed into a Land Rover and headed for the airport after eighteen years of life on board. The dock was crammed with people, lining up to wave her off, and as Zoe nestled her head into my chest in the afternoon heat, I could see her, my daughter, walking away from me just like that.
It takes guts to be a mama. It takes an almost unimaginable bravery to gather up all your hope and all your longing and all your love and set it to spinning like a top outside the safety of your own arms. I used to dream about these days when I was a child myself, just waiting to spend my life as the caretaker of another.
And now here I am and it's everything and nothing like I imagined.
She is nine months old and in five minutes she'll be eighteen, waving goodbye and embarking on her own adventures, and somehow the years in between will be gone. My thoughts are all over the place this morning. I want to run into her room, scoop her up and hold her close, but I know that she'll cry to be put down, eager to explore the world around her. I've been begging her to sleep through the night; last night she did, and all I can think is that I miss that blissful half hour where I hold her in the dark after she eats and she's warm and soft and plastered to my body, part of me again in a way she'll never allow when she's awake.
I've spent a lifetime waiting for her life, and I can't let it pass me by in a haze of early mornings and fractured nights. I want her to look back, eight or eighteen or eighty years down the road, and see nothing but my love for her.
