"The days are long but the years are short" falls short. That phrase doesn't describe how the long feels, how the short aches, or the guilt you can experience from both. It doesn't describe the nights you can't fall asleep (and YOU NEED TO FALL ASLEEP) and the regrets or worries that race through your brain while you try. Reliving the moments you weren't your best self for your children. Anticipating the moments you know you'll really need to be. Trying to savor the moments they forgave you for it all. Trying to fall asleep.
Babies grow into people. I mean, you know that's going to happen but the gravity hits hard when the process really kicks in. You want to simultaneously cultivate who they are while shaping them into good, be there for them but get out of their way. There's so much balancing (so much falling!) and so. very. much. getting back up again. They're tied to your soul so you dig up energy for them and try your hardest to be what they need.
Some days I kill it. We check all the boxes -- physical, mental, spiritual, social, we do all the things. Some days I drown. I fail, and that doesn't just affect me anymore but it's theirs too. My failure spills onto them and they feel it, we all feel it, it just gets everywhere. When babies grow into people they experience the failures and they feel them and then you start fearing they'll remember them. So you try and fall asleep and you promise tomorrow will be better. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's another fall. Almost always it's both.
I just want them to know they're loved. They don't have to think I'm perfect (oh they know I'm not). But if I can put them to bed every night feeling loved, and kiss their faces before every nap and wrestle them a little extra on the days they didn't get to see dad, then they will know they're loved. They don't want more than the simplest I can give. And oh I love them, beyond what this world offers. They are part of my soul forever.
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