As James grows up before my very eyes, my delinquency in keeping a journal especially stings. Every day James manages to do or say something cuter, funnier, naughtier (which, at his age, translates to cute & hilarious...usually), and more clever than the day before. You would think that the only emotion I would be feeling during those cute, funny, precious moments is pure and unadulterated JOY, but right alongside that joy is an "ache." That is the only word I can think of to describe it. At first, I couldn't figure out what or why that pestering feeling was always showing up at every happy moment (and as a mom, you know that those moments occur countless times a day) since James was born. After a while, I realized what the ache was. I was feeling a sadness knowing that James wouldn't always play with his belly button to put himself to sleep, and that he wouldn't always ask, "Wuh doonin' Mommy?" in his sweet, high pitched little voice, and that he wouldn't always pronounce the word "bumblebee," "bumby-bee." Nor, I might add, would he always color the window in bright orange highlighter, open every last one of my tampons and dump them all over the bathroom floor along with the entire box of q-tips, or somehow find a way to escape onto the golf-course during piano lessons when I think he's watching Caillou (Darn that Elias! I told him how many times to shut the gate when he leaves!). Not only will he not always do these things, but will I be able to remember them all?
My sister-in-law Danielle once wrote about the moments in life that are fleeting - and that although they are the happiest moments you can experience, even perfect like a blooming flower, they are sad simply because they won't last. What truth there is to that. I feel it every day - almost every moment - with my Baby James.
I'm sure I'll still be calling him that when he's 40. Poor kid.
And so, in an attempt to at least subdue the "ache" in every "happy," I find that all I have are "My Words." They are the only way I have of etching life's greatest, worst, and even mediocre moments in stone (...the etching being my typing fingers.....and the stone being the internet....not as cool, but still).
Ineloquent or uninteresting as my words may be, it seems it's time to get them written down, if not just for me to remember. And maybe for someone, somewhere to catch a glimpse of who I was.
