The Lost Entry

I found this journal entry on my laptop. I had completely forgotten about it. I don't think I ever posted it...but, if I did, that only verifies that I have, indeed, completely lost my memory. Anyhow, it is such a sweet post, and takes me back to those wonderful, magical, oh-so-distant first weeks when I was a brand-new mommy and it was just me and my baby girl...

25 Sept. 2008
So, I was lying on the couch next to Eden tonight, watching her sleep. (She is such a cuddle-bug, and will fall asleep in a wink if I’m lying next to her or holding her, and will wake up just as fast if I leave her, if even for a moment. How does she know I am gone?)

Anyhow, I digress. I love cuddling with her while she sleeps. I love kissing the top of her head, drinking in the way she smells, how soft her hair, how tiny her hands. I was thinking about all the things those hands will do as the years go by…before I know it they will be constantly sticky with a thousand wonderfully sticky things as only a toddler can find. Then, they will be learning to write. Which means they’ll be traipsing off to school attached to a kindergartner who has all too soon flown the coop. Then, they’ll be scraped and banged up through elementary school—or covered with glue and glitter—and, I hope, occasionally around my neck when she comes home to land for a quick hug.

Then, off to high school, where she’ll all of a sudden want to hold someone else’s hand. Where will momma be then, when she is discovering her independence in someone else’s presence besides her mom’s? And one day those little hands will hold a key and unlock her own apartment door. And momma will no longer be a breath’s touch away.

Though I’ve only just begun, I have seen a glimpse of motherhood’s amazing journey. It has, of course, the overwhelming joy one would expect. But it’s also tinged with sadness, knowing that she is not my own, and that my entire goal is to prepare her to be apart from me.

Ahhhh. When she is twenty I’ll look back and say, “Where did the time go?” But tonight I will lie here beside my daughter. The trash and the dishes can wait. It’s okay that I don’t often change out of my pajamas. When given a choice (and I am SO glad I have the freedom to choose) I will stay beside my daughter and listen to her breathe. Because I love her. And, for this moment, we’re just a breath’s touch away.