A lot of firsts have been taking place as of late too... walking, standing up in the tub (oh my!) and soon a first birthday... seriously... when did this happen? How is my baby boy almost a whole year old. It really feels like a day or two ago I was sitting on the couch will a belly big enough to use as a TV table, watching Buffy while eating a bowl of cereal. For real. I can almost feel him kicking me in the side just thinking about it. But then I wake up and notice that the pain in my side is just a muscle spasm resulting from my possibly over-vigorous workout this afternoon. The workout I barely fit in while my 11 month old son napped in his crib. Upstairs. In his own room.
How do I?
I don't even...
I am beyond baffled. I hear all of the countless voices in my head, the memories of every other person I ran into during those crazy 9 months who told me "just you wait, it goes by so fast"... and I want to wring their necks now even more than I did then... because they were right. And even though I believed them then, it was in an empathetic way not the sympathetic way I feel over the issue now. Now I'm right there with them. One among the heard of unsolicited advice-givers, feeling the pangs of time zipping by too quickly, wanting to warn anyone and everyone about to set foot on this path of the perils that come with watching your offspring grow before your eyes, so that maybe, just maybe they will grasp hold of one second more than I was able to.
Even if my warnings are in vain, as they will inevitably wind up being, I find them escaping from my lips without my permission. My heart speaks before my mind has the chance to quiet the offense. A defense is useless in these situations.
The thing is that knowing now how impossible it can be to keep my mouth shut does not make me less irritated over the warnings I am still receiving, it only makes me mad at myself for doing the same darn thing. I feel like my teenage self who apparently had no other verbal response capability but to say "I know!" in response to, well, just about everything. It's not really the advice givers I'm upset with either... it's that I feel their pain, the exact pain, and I don't want to be reminded of it... and I don't feel better knowing I'm not alone, it just makes me want to hug them and heal their sense of loss. But I can't.
That fact aches inside of me and causes me to recoil to a place of agitation, because I have not yet gained enough emotional control over myself to break this cycle. So while I'm still in the process, in the early awareness stages that precurse change I say to all those I have physically or mentally rolled my eyes to... I am sorry.
I have nothing to offer at this moment but a humble apology.
You. Were. Right. ...{exhale}
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