It's late and I should be in bed, but I'm so rattled that I'm pretty sure sleep will be a long time coming.
Zoe just had a nightmare.
I was sitting at my computer, going through some applications for new nurses when I heard her. It wasn't her normal middle-of-the-night cry; she was in there, alone in the dark, and she was screaming. I ran to her and found her curled up in her crib, eyes shut tight, shaking and screaming.
I'm shaking, too, just writing this out right now.
I scooped her up, held her close to my chest and felt her start to relax as her screams gave way to whimpers. Mama mama mama, over and over, and even though I know she doesn't know what that word means yet, I was grateful in the most visceral way that she was already in my arms when she started to call out my name.
It was all over in the space of about twenty seconds; she never even opened her eyes. I held her for several long minutes afterwards, her head resting on my heart as it finally slowed, and then I put her back down. She rolled over, found her giraffe and settled in to sleep.
And now I'm alone in the living room, and I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what in her short ten months of life could have been the trigger for such fear, and I'm petrified by the thought that it's going to happen again. I mean, I know it will; it's an inevitable part of life. We've all been afraid before. We've all had times when we were alone with the darkness pressing in all around us.
I think the thing that hurts me the most is that I'm not always going to be there to pick her up and hold her tight and make it all go away. She will face things far more sinister than a nightmare that lasted less than half a minute. There will be mean girls and boys who look right through her and years where she's not sure she fits inside her skin. There will be impossible decisions and broken friendships and times when she wants to just give up. There will be a thousand monsters under her bed and in her closet, and I don't know how I can make it all safe for her.
I don't know how I can accept the fact that that's not my job.
I'm realizing every day all over again that this love is like nothing I've ever known before. In that moment, in those few eternal seconds before her shrieking stopped, I would have willingly pulled the heart right out of my chest if it meant that she wouldn't be afraid. But as I sit here and think of all that, as I'm wishing desperately that I'd never let her out of the safety of my arms, I know that soon enough she's going to slip her hand from mine and walk out into the world without me. She will walk her own path, just like I found mine and my own mama found hers, and this is the way it should be.
But why is it so much easier to hold on than to let go?
Zoe just had a nightmare.
I was sitting at my computer, going through some applications for new nurses when I heard her. It wasn't her normal middle-of-the-night cry; she was in there, alone in the dark, and she was screaming. I ran to her and found her curled up in her crib, eyes shut tight, shaking and screaming.
I'm shaking, too, just writing this out right now.
I scooped her up, held her close to my chest and felt her start to relax as her screams gave way to whimpers. Mama mama mama, over and over, and even though I know she doesn't know what that word means yet, I was grateful in the most visceral way that she was already in my arms when she started to call out my name.
It was all over in the space of about twenty seconds; she never even opened her eyes. I held her for several long minutes afterwards, her head resting on my heart as it finally slowed, and then I put her back down. She rolled over, found her giraffe and settled in to sleep.
And now I'm alone in the living room, and I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what in her short ten months of life could have been the trigger for such fear, and I'm petrified by the thought that it's going to happen again. I mean, I know it will; it's an inevitable part of life. We've all been afraid before. We've all had times when we were alone with the darkness pressing in all around us.
I think the thing that hurts me the most is that I'm not always going to be there to pick her up and hold her tight and make it all go away. She will face things far more sinister than a nightmare that lasted less than half a minute. There will be mean girls and boys who look right through her and years where she's not sure she fits inside her skin. There will be impossible decisions and broken friendships and times when she wants to just give up. There will be a thousand monsters under her bed and in her closet, and I don't know how I can make it all safe for her.
I don't know how I can accept the fact that that's not my job.
I'm realizing every day all over again that this love is like nothing I've ever known before. In that moment, in those few eternal seconds before her shrieking stopped, I would have willingly pulled the heart right out of my chest if it meant that she wouldn't be afraid. But as I sit here and think of all that, as I'm wishing desperately that I'd never let her out of the safety of my arms, I know that soon enough she's going to slip her hand from mine and walk out into the world without me. She will walk her own path, just like I found mine and my own mama found hers, and this is the way it should be.
But why is it so much easier to hold on than to let go?