So Much

I see the world through Sookie's eyes lately and it is piercingly incandescent.

Deep down I know she has all of life's secrets close to her little beating heart and that is why she is so blissfully happy 99% of the time. In the very short span she has been in my life, she has taught me more than anyone else has...ever. It seems nearly impossible that just two short years ago, she did not exist. The world could learn so much from her. Perhaps that is the epitome of a mother's delusion for the power of her own child, but oh well. I feel it, so I'll document it and write about it. She wakes up with a grin engraved on her porcelain face and she goes about her day finding humor and light in the seemingly mundane. She has so much love for everything and everyone; she waves and blows kisses to strangers like it's her job and she's running for president. Except the emotion behind her friendly gestures is achingly genuine.

I don't like to dwell on what is wrong with life, but I've made a lot of excuses. There was so much holding me back, but I'm throwing it all away. The first year of motherhood is hard. It is also sweet, drastic, stunning, overwhelming, and amazingly profound. I'm turning a new leaf in various ways and ventures. And it feels so good it kind of hurts. Jogging alongside spring with her awakening, renewal, and insane drive to be better; I'm pushing, leaping into new chapters and saying goodbye to self deprecating guilt.

Life is an ongoing improvement project, isn't it? I don't ever want to lose that fire to be better.
 
One of the many lessons Sookie has made me concretely aware of? You can embark on each new day as if it is a new year, a fresh beginning to get it all put together, strung up, turned up loud and bright. And you go as far as you can with that momentum, but the really sweet secret that can elude us is that you can continue to build on that day the next morning, or if need be, you tear it all down and start from scratch. You keep repeating this until you hit a day, a groove so funky and vibrant, that you run with it as fast as you can, for as long as you can.

The changes in her daily are momentous, and yet they have soft, blurry edges that only people around her every day would even notice. Her hands are getting big. Like, so very big. I don't think a word exists to envelop how grateful I am that I get to be a part of her every day so I notice details such as this one.

I love to see her reach for me.

When there are two arms you had a part in creating and they are reaching out for you, and only you will do; these things morph into a whirlwind and there is something so ridiculously special about that it smashes everything you ever were and rearranges you into something new, someone wiser, someone more aware.