September 27, 2014
I call that amazing. How easily I feel but cannot compute the pain. How much I have to say but cannot now that there is someone else here to steal my attention. My words mean nothing if they're not for you. And if you can look back, wherever you may be now, and see discourse in our relationship, please know how much I am struggling to be the best for you. To be a really good and loving and kind and fun MOM. And I know I'm stumbling on that, I know I am not all that you would hope I would be (just as, perhaps, my mother wasn't quite up to par with what my na�ve heart thought a mother should be) but it truly is not a state you can judge until you're there, Squeaker.
You have to know I am not sad because of you. I am sad because I want to be MORE for you, BETTER for you, EVERYTHING for you -- but my struggles now are only because I set this damned bar so high that perhaps it's a bit too high of a goal to obtain. I only see how I fail to reach these goals instead of how far I've really come. And I have come a long way in the miles of adversity leading up to your very existence.
Your birth. Your coming to be. Your existence. Your production of our absolute love...
Oh, you. My sweet little girl.
Celebrate your youth. You will have my sense of who is who so do not waste that omniscient gift on those with a questionable nature. They should not be a question at all but a welcomed addition to your life. And, for all your heart, if they are questionable or too quiet, they cannot be saved. Or perhaps they can. But not by you. That's an investment with minimal returns. You should never have to work or suffer for good company -- it should just BE good company.
I have watched you with your empathic nature since you were a newborn; tears of your own for your fellow daycare mate crying. How you would reach out then and how you do still now. You become emotional over sad songs, offering hugs to those who have been hurt, analyzing your role in this world's greater good. And there is nothing wrong with that. We think it's beautiful to see. But I know first hand what life does to a deeply loving and caring heart -- it leads you in purity at the first and then, in time, to your own destruction for another's happiness when you're not fending for your own.
I know it all too well. How much you have to give inside your heart -- how you only want to be good and make a positive difference. And I know how it can change without your meaning it to after a few vivid and harsh disappointments. You become selfish. For once! And why not? You become selfish to garner that which has alluded you for so very long -- for all you have given and not received -- and then, with hardly a black mark upon your heart, you make the wrong move. You start to take for the sake of having. You find a false sense of pride for those who covet you for a turn and so you play it like a fiddle, just to find that sweet sound of L O V E.
But that's not love, my darling. That's conceit and complacency. That's a game you cannot win. But many girls and women get caught up in that for the positive attention, the return of love, they seek. I warn you now to guard against it but it's so easy to fall into.
And that is life. The trials and tribulations. The mistake and milestones. All of my mistakes I would not trade for some of them taught me more about myself than the magic that has happened since. Some of my "mistakes" were the happiest moments I've known. And I suppose you'll never really know until you've lived it on your own. But not all mistakes have to be lived to be true -- some you can take warning to and watch out for. I have always said that a wilderness of warning is worth of a thorn's worth of experience and, though not always heeded, is quite the case most of the time.
So don't be a dumb ass. Don't get into cars with strangers, no matter how wide their grin (and perhaps because of).
Do not allow yourself for a moment in your existence to be bullied. If you are, tell us or someone you trust who can and will stand up next to you. We won't embarrass you (or perhaps we will) but it's not worth it to let it pass without comment. Those people need a swift kick in the ass because they will not stop being bad people for they have never learned NOT to be bad people. Everyone -- gracious and kind, jackasses and jerkoffs -- needs a swift kick in the ass now and then and especially those who do and those who are bullied. Inaction is not an option. You stand up for who you are, what you want, where you are going and what you have done. You are no less than the next, no more than the worst, and no different than those you cannot relate to.
Be confident in who you are because you are beautiful inside and out. That's not just a mother's devotion but a genuine sense of who is who, my little love.
You can give for the sake of giving but not for the sake of getting.
You can want to change the world for goodness' sake but not for your own sake.
Your attitude determines your altitude. You can judge others as is human nature but unless you know what it is to have children, experience a great loss, run a marathon or bake a cake, try to hold your tongue. We all have different paths to take, choices to make, mountains to overcome, hands to shake. Don't take those for granted. Wisdom is a wide world to live within and not many of us have been the whole wide world through.
I used to believe, perhaps foolishly, that if it's worth the worst, it's worth the risk. But how little do we really know of the worst that can happen to us, really. Our angles of possible perception are hardly wide enough to fully comprehend "the worst." And that is not something we should seek out. I cannot protect you against pain but I can warn you now you that it will be, at times, hardly worth the risk taken.
And if nothing else in the world sinks in until the warranted moment makes it blatantly obvious, just know beyond all shadows of a doubt that we love you no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. There is no wrong that you can do that will outdo our absolute, unconditional love for you. You are our very hearts -- for we did not know true love until you -- you are our very joy -- for joy wasn't as sweet until we saw your smile -- you are the reason that anything and everything is possible.
Friends and lovers and co-workers and hard times and good times and sweet successes and hurtful failures can come and they can all quickly go, but we are resilient. We stand next to you, always. We stand for you, always. We may not always see eye to eye but we will always see heart to heart. We are unfading. Unending. You cannot bend us or break of this, try as you may. And without, we would not know what it really, truly is to be these things.
For it is in your sweet footfalls, your piercing screams, your loving kisses, blissful songs and your fitful dreams -- all those things -- that have made us who we are. Who we were truly meant to be. That is YOU, my little love! All that. You have made us realize our biggest dreams, our deepest worries, our loneliest souls and our most proud moments -- you have given us the grace of God, the good of knowing more than we ever thought we could know, the proof of what pain we can truly endure to produce such pure beauty.
We would not know disappointment if it weren't for disappointing you. We would not know love if it weren't for loving you. We wouldn't know much.
You are all love. Nothing about you isn't. Nothing about you isn't wonderful.
Oh, you. Our sweet, amazing, wonderful and joyful little girl.
This is the life.
You.
All the rest -- my worry over work and chores and music and loss and hardship -- seems so silly.
Thank you for showing me that. You could not know how I needed it so.