At Last

Sometimes her smile, her laughter, her questions
Drop kick me in this part of my gut that was easy to find when I was 5 or 7.
Today, it is calloused and hidden and you can’t just access it.
You can’t just tickle it or reach it.
You must truly teleport to it.
And sometimes, like tonight – she puts on a wide brimmed hat and an even wider grin
She smiles her “sorry, not sorry” smile
She makes jokes
She brightens the room and my mood
She asks so many questions
She dances and watches her skirt twirl just so
She embraces all that is her
so effortlessly.
She does not apologize.
She knows she is beautiful.
She knows she is smart.
She loves that she’s made just the way she is made.
She doesn’t like bugs, but she loves science.
She loves dresses and leggings.
She is bright. She is hilarious.
She catches idiosyncrasies I wish I could hide.
She imitates my cough.
She talks about Jesus like she’s had more than 1 play date with the man Himself.
She draws inspiration from Disney and plants.
Her brother and capes and strawberries.
She blesses me every day with a joy I can’t describe.
To be near her
To be next to her warmth of spirit and literal warmth – no really the girl is warm like a space heater
Is to be reminded of my humanity, of hers, of yours
She is so thoughtful and sweet and inside her heart is made of the same material as her Daddy’s – all spinach and oatmeal and burlap with a dash of honey, 13 strawberries and healthy dose of silly string – hearty and wholesome and sweet and silly
So much so that sometimes I am her opposite and lost in creating connection with her.
My creative spirit flounders sometimes as I grasp at straws
and to talk to her, to be with her requires my writers block to lift, requires me to be smarter and gentler and more amazing than I actually am and she’s so smart she can see that when it happens.
she quietly brings me along, she’s patient with me, she waits for me to have something funny to say, something neat to tell her, to be focused and funny and tell her things she knows she’ll need to know someday – like why lady gets so mad at the Tramp and what it means to fall in love and why Daddy is my favorite person I’ve ever known
but when the block lifts, when the fog in my head dissipates and organically we are in synch, when we connect
when our hearts and spirits intuitively recall that time she was connected to me through her belly button
when I ate only popsicles because that is all her little spirit could tolerate inside my womb
we laugh and we smile and we swell up with a love so big that it breaks my heart and blows my mind
even as it soothes my soul
we don’t speak many words, we just laugh and snuggle and tickle and give eskimo kisses and she loves how I’m so cold and I love how she’s so warm and I breathe her in and I know in those moments that nothing I did before and I nothing I will ever do after, will matter near as much, will ever bring me as much peace, will ever be more important, will ever be more ‘meant’ than the moments I share with her.
She drives me to be my best self all day, every day. And I love her so intensely that I fail at being as good as the Mom I think she deserves.
But she seems to understand the impossibly high expectations I have of anyone in her life and loves me anyway and the strange, sinewy truth of Mother and Daughter is written all over her sheepish, confident grin.
Her wavy, golden hair.
Her quite confidence.
Her end of night goodnight where she spontaneously tells me she loves my arms and my elbows and my eyelashes and I tell her that I love her ear hairs and her ponytail and her toe jam
And she twirls her special Addilyn twirl right into my solar plexus.
And we are a fairy tale, we are a wish I never let myself wish and a dream I never let myself dream
and she is here lighting up my life
At Last.