love letter to my child

We’re going to be okay.

I just wanted you to know that.

Maybe I need to know that?

But in the heart of my hearts, I know that we’re going to be okay, you and I and the whole of us.

Sweet child, please know that every single thing we do is with you in mind.  You have put up with so much, so many changes, so much unknown.  But it is only because we long to give you the very best life we possibly can.  It might not seem that way sometimes; it might seem difficult, demanding, different.

Sweet child, I know it can get a little wild around here sometimes.  Between the three of my babies versus the one mama, sometimes I get to the very end of myself and I take it out on you.  I snap, I correct too harshly, I cast the blame your way that I am so very tired.  But baby, it’s not your fault.  You’re just making sense of this life and looking to me to help you interpret your days.  You’re still so very tiny.  I don’t mean to take it out on you.

True, you might have woken me up at 5:00am today.  But I am the mama.  I can handle it, because somehow when you’re a mama, you just do.  You are my baby.  You’re still learning, still growing, still just my little one.  I am sorry for casting my exhaustion, my doubt, my insecurities, my anger, my worry onto you.  You’re not strong enough to carry that for me.  I know that.  Sometimes the overwhelming magnitude of what I face each day gets the best of me and instead of handing it over to the One who can carry that load, I try to get you to hold it.  I think that you should behave better than you do, that you should act more maturely than you know how, that you should know to pick up and clean up and wipe and speak kindly and entertain yourself.

And sure, we’re working on that, my baby.  You’ll get there.  But right now?  You’re still so tiny.  You’ve come such a long way in these few years we’ve been together.  My exhaustion is not your responsibility.  My loneliness, my worries, my fears, my anything is not your responsibility.  All you need to carry is your toys and your crayons and your lovies and your favorite sneakers and your passionate heart into the world.  The rest is mine to carry for the both of us.

Sweet child, you disrupt me.  I think that I am going one way, and you chart the course in a different direction.  You have been one interruption after another, sending me into territory I never would have ventured on my own.  But what a grand adventure it has been.  You need to know that: You are my very greatest adventure.

Sweet child, life is certainly complicated with you in it.  Just when I think that I’m getting the hang of it, you change; circumstances change, your sister changes, something will definitely change, and I am left wondering how to take care of and shape this little person who is once again new to me.

I’m sorry for sometimes counting you as a burden when really you are the truest joy.  I remember how simple life was before you, no needs to take care of but our own.  But you know what?  It was also empty in ways we didn’t even know.

Now we are so full- cup runneth over kind of full.  Of wonder, of awe, of pure delight.  See, we love you so.  Remember the fort we built?  The one that started because of the rip in our sheet and we just knew it would make the very best secret door?  Let’s hold onto that.  And remember that afternoon when we went out to get frozen yogurt because we all needed a bit of a reset and it worked? Let’s hold onto that.  And remember blowing bubbles on the front porch and laughing as they popped on your sister’s nose?  Let’s hold onto that today too.

Sweet child, you need to know that you are my very best work.  I pour my heart and my strength and every ounce of my love into you because you are just my very best.  I love you fiercely and deeply and completely.  Sweet child, you are the holiest work I have ever taken on and I need you to know that every ounce of my laboring for you is a joy.

Are you an interruption to my sanity, my plans, my career, my clean house, my sleep?  Sure.  But the most sacred interruption.  You make me pause and notice the clouds in the sky.  You stop me in my tracks to watch you leap across the floor.  You forgive and you move on and you invite me to share in your awe and wonder. You get me to the end of myself and it is only there that I can let go of striving, of keeping it together, of achieving because you make me pause, take a breath and recalibrate my vision.

I will forever give my everything to you and all I am after that.  I will be broken for you.  I will carry it all for you.  I will rise time and time and time again for you.  You are worth it.

I can’t imagine there being no you, my dear.  I can’t wait to do this life with you by my side.

Sweet child, we’re on this adventure together and we’re going to be okay.

I just wanted you to know that.

//xoxoxo//