PSYCHE CALYPSO

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

I wanna talk about my daughter today. And the first thing I want to say is that she is AMAZING --- and I know that's the cliche of cliches as far as parents are concerned but... she really is. And this isn't merely because she came out of MY body or that I spent 4-hours in labor only to have a c-section otherwise I would've lost her...


No...

She just is. She's very kind and bright and funny --- and these may not seem like tangible qualities given to an almost three-year old... but she is exactly those things. Amazing because she amazes me and the people around her everyday... and as her mother, I've never been so lucky to have such a daughter. Like... I'm not even sure how she turned out the way she did considering I'm hardly the most motherly of mothers nor am I the most womanly of women. Sure, they say being a mother comes naturally to a woman but I think... for the most part, it was her who taught me how to mother her as she babied me. (And I know that may seem like a stretch but she really is raising me more than I'm raising her.) I find myself growing up --- and yeah, I party it up like a mother(f*cker) but it doesn't hinder her from wanting to learn despite my absence... to show me that coming home to her is the absolute BEST feeling ever.

....

I don't remember her ever crawling.
Ok, maybe a few times, but only backwards.
From there... crawling backwards... she just began to stand up and walk.
By the time she was one, she could already walk around.
She empathized with pain... and was usually strangely quiet when she was in the midst of fighting.
She made you laugh when you cried.
She told you it was ok when you cried.
Her first song ever was Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me.
She was potty-trained by the age of 2... and opted to use the actual toilet by 2 and a half.
Her favorite pastime is to jump on my bed.
And now... she always asks me to go home and bring her red, purple, pink or yellow icecream.
But her pure heart... her innocence... to believe that her father is perpetually at "work" without resentment... and to find a friend in my new partner and recognize love in the way he and I are with each other...

I've never known purpose until she came.

She is my bestfriend... and I hope, that when she grows up, she would want me to be her friend.

Until then... I'll just blackmail and embarrass her with these baby videos. (Because I'm her mother and I can do whatever the hell I want =)