A Letter to My Little Maniac on her Nine Month Birthday

Today my little beast is nine months old. She's been on the outside as long as she was on the inside! Somehow that feels momentous. Every day she moves a little more away from me and into herself. Every day she is a new Chaya, careening towards some perfect embodiment of Chaya that I can only guess at. I am full of wonder. I will miss being one with her, but it is so very worth it.

It struck me today that were I to die or be separated from Chaya today, she wouldn't really remember me when she grew up. There would be a certain concept hobbled together from vague hunches and the recollections of those around her (her father's sporadic memory and fascinatingly adjusted misinterpretations of little shreds of Mars/Venus misunderstandings of yore, her grandmother's overly effusive recollections, the simple "idea" of "mom" that could fill any additional legend, and a few overly cultivated photos I've shared with the world). But me. This time together. It would be a blank space to her fully realized self. In a sense that makes me glad to have a record of our life together. Some voice from me to her. For better or worse, she has come from me, and we all have a yearning to understand our origins.

And should I lose that future with her, I'd like to leave at least this much of a message to my crazy, silly, awe-inspiring little creature:

Dear daughter.

I wouldn't even be able to give you advice. I don't know you yet. I don't know who or what you will become. I don't know what lessons lay ahead for you. Despite that, we are more intimate than I could have ever imagined. Your blood was mine once. And more viscerally, I wade through your bodily fluids without a second thought. I feed on food that's dribbled from your mouth and catch drool in my eye when we play airplane. We are not the same person anymore - and every day grow less so - but we are as close as two people could be. This will mortify you when you're a teenager, no doubt. But what won't be mortifying then? 

I won't try to tell you who I am. That presumes even I know. But I hope to tell you some sliver of what you mean to me.

You are my world. Before you, the world was rich and full. As you drift into your own personhood, my life will remain full. But you are the embodiment of that - the azoth of this little flurry of fictions I call "my life." You are the joy, the agony, the beauty and the wonder. You are the humor. You are the deepest chasms of humanity and the transcendence of the anima lofted above. We shared a soul once and I knew what it meant for The Creator to love their Creation - blindly, but all knowing; unconsciously building and sustaining life that was the very core of me. You separated from me and every day grow further and further from my deepest id. But you are all that is inside me and all that surrounded me from earliest conception. A mirror to everything that I am, for better and for worse. Sometimes you destroy me with the faintest quiver. Sometimes you elate me, and make me more than I could have hoped to become. 

I love you. I'm not the most loving mother. I wish I could fill your world with reassuring comfort, delight and whimsy every minute of the day. Sometimes, I fail so very much to set my pecadillos aside. Sometimes I fail to revel in your sheer existence. Sometimes I lose the sapor of each fleeting second to succumb to the blinking light of my cell phone. Sometimes I am screamingly bored. Sometimes I am so wrung out and tired that all I can do is remove myself from your sight and scream quietly. 

I want to be the best self I can be for you. I don't always do that. But I love you. More than words or even actions can ever say. I don't care if you've missed every nap, screamed all day, destroyed every valuable in arm's reach, ripped out my hair and left marks on my beleaguered nipple. I don't care if I'm so sleep deprived that I'm the one ugly-crying. I love you so much, it takes my breath away. If I joke. If I laugh. If I deny that you are less than miraculous, it's because I am human. It's because nothing worth taking seriously should be free of laughter and doubt. And because you would be too boring for the depths of love I harbor for you if you were merely perfect. If you were simply pleasant. If you were always likable. 

And if I get to grow up with you, we will clash. There may even be times I don't like you. But I will always love you until my heart is turned inside out and wrung to the last drop. 

I loved the life I had before you. I love who I was. Who I still am. And I'm confident in the who I will become again. I have given some of that up to make space for you. I miss it. I always will. But I never, ever, ever doubt that it was worth every lost delusion and delight. It baffles me that anyone would even hesitate to do the same. When your father tries to encourage me to do more things "for myself" or to take some "me" time to run/play/do all the things he loves to do himself, I can hardly understand. I wonder how can he miss that you are my "me" time. That you are so fleetingly mine. That soon I will have every moment to myself. Then I will have so much space to grow apart from you again, as you grow into yourself. I'm excited then to see the world through your eyes. And to show you what I see through mine. And to god I hope to share our mutual discoveries; at least until yours are so very much your own that you'd rather keep them to yourself. I'll still see the light in your eyes as one more piece clicks together and one more mistake yields a story not fit for mother's ears.

I only wish those parts of me I've set aside can linger on and reignite so that you may see them too and find some glimmer of familiarity therein. That they may color your world a few deeper shades. My love for music. My love for words. The spiritual sensuality of ariosa. The infinite second of a long embrace. The beauty I see in a subtle gesture. The expansive canons of western and eastern philosophy. The questions, the doubt, and the dry dry humor of those great minds who've challenged me and reinvented me in their images. I hope they give you at least more options as you embrace your own core essentials.

I'm sometimes a selfish mother. Anxious! So anxious! I'm impatient. I'm jealous. I'm protective. I want you all to myself when I know you are ready to embrace the world.. I'm uncertain. I stay in the house too often and don't always give you the challenges and the excitement to let you grow. Sometimes I don't treat your father with the love and respect I hope for you to always expect from your relationships. Sometimes I'm sorry you don't have a super mother, but I hope we can grow together. I know - if fate allows - you will learn to be the child to my mother. And I'll learn to be the mother to your child. And then to your evolving Chaya or whoever you turn out to be. And I will have to step aside as you continue to make your preferences known. You already have no trouble with that. Please - as much of a headache as it can be - don't lose that clear voice.

Please don't lose that wonder.

Please don't lose that adventure, and that little hint of feral fascination that forever impels you.

I would die for you in a heartbeat, but you've raised my instinct to live on exponentially. I cannot leave you satisfied, because there is so much to share and learn. I will follow you - first around the house, and then from the distant home as you expand ever further into the world. I feel shivers at what you will make of it!

But for now I will simply hold you, sleeping in my arms and sing one more round of "Dream a Little Dream." Because I am in love with the future I see with you. But I am not just quite ready to put you down. Not just yet.