Almost Four

My baby is almost a kid.  I'm so proud of her.  And so sad, too.  Almost a kid.  And then grown, and I won't know where it has gone.

She has a heart bigger than her body.  She still loves and asks for the people who hurt and abandoned her a year ago, and that kills me.  But I'm so impressed by her consistent love, too.  I hope she gets a little of that from me.  I know I've never been able to stop loving someone, even when they beat and beat me.  It just hurts my whole self knowing the pain she is gonna go through, wearing her heart on her sleeve like that.  Just another reason I am sad she is growing up so fast.

There is so much joy in watching her grow.  We laugh and learn and run every day, and I am exhilarated by these tiny lives in my hands.  But tonight I'm feeling mostly the melancholy of passing time and the memories we made over her first years that have been betrayed or dismissed.  I'm feeling our lives race past me while I scratch and cling, hanging on.  I'm feeling like a mom.  So it's good.  It's just... hard.  Just hard.

I'm gonna go hug my baby before she grows up.