Today you are one.
It seems like a lifetime ago that my body quivered in labor. But it also feels so recent. Sometimes I need photos to remind me that you were ever so small, while other times I am shocked at the heavier weight of you in my arms as you sleep. Your long body sprawled out on our bed makes me do a double-take every time. You are so different, and yet exactly the same.
And what you've done to me - how you've changed me - I can barely begin to say. You've made my heart stronger but more vulnerable. And while you haven't actually changed the world (yet), you have changed my entire view of it. So few things matter to me the way they used to, while others have become my universe. The only way I could know such beauty and pain was to have you pass through me. My world intensified with you. But most of all, it made me become who've I've always wanted to be. I am happiest in this new state of love. The complexities that have developed and have been uncovered, the raw emotion that is so often revealed without my consent - they are heavy matters of the heart that have somehow helped me to be lighthearted.
I will never expect you to be able to grasp how intense my love is for you. I could never even explain it even if you somehow had the ability to understand. But I hope you feel it. Even during the bad times or when you're in trouble, I hope you know my love only grows. But I also never want you to be burdened by it. I want my love to free you and bring you the security of never even having to think about it. I hope that is the gift I'm able to give you every year on your birthday, and every day of my life.
Today you are one. And what do you think? What does your body feel like inside? What secrets to life do you hold so deeply that not even you will remember? Because you cannot yet grasp the concept of holding onto a moment, I will hold onto this moment in time for you, at least how I see it. If ever you should ask me what you were like at this age, that I will know.
Until those questions come, until you possibly have a child of your own and want to know more about your infant self, I will capture you, moment by moment, step by step. You were inside me once and you always will be. Right now, I know you like I know myself. I can't wait to know you forever.
Today you are one. And like the day of your birth, this day will go down as one of the best days of my life.
Happy Birthday, Sunflower.
5 comments:
Absolutely beautiful!
Happy Birthday Firecracker!!
xoxo
heart-wrenching. maybe because i felt and wrote about the same just one day apart from you. your words are so touching, so familiar, so true.
christy
I'm sitting here (still very much pregnant) and this reminds me so much of how I felt at Elise's first birthday. I can't believe I'm soon to start this journey again. I hope she has a wonderful birthday and a happy becoming a mother day to you!
Ok, now I'm crying. Beautifully written
Oh my Goodness, Cristina, this is so very beautiful! It describes so perfectly how I feel about Ursa now. When I first read this post back when you wrote it two and a half years ago, I probably thought it was cute and sweet. But re-reading it now that I have a daughter of my own, I felt every bit of it so very deeply. I was browsing your blog looking for a picture of Stella in that cute headband that we were just talking about and then got sucked into reading some of your old posts -- with a new appreciation now that I have experienced some of these things myself. What an incredible and unparalleled thing motherhood is! You can't truly understand it until you experience it yourself. I love and enjoy it more than anything else I have done in my life before. You captured it so well in your posts during Stella's first year. And it does go by oh so very fast! I am trying to savor every single moment of it. Thankfully, I still have a few months before she turns one.
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