Saturday, March 28, 2009

Discovery


I was putting a sleeping E down for his nap today and was struck hard by how much of a person he is. He holds together now all on his own. He doesn't need me to support his head to keep his neck from breaking. Doesn't need me to restrain his arms to keep him from blinding himself (though he does have a huge self-inflicted scratch on his nose--oh, well!) Doesn't need my presence to have his own identity. It's miraculous, truly. This is how people find religion, I think, deep in the well of something they never imagined.



People told me, of course. I mean, it's no big secret: becoming a parent changes everything. And it's true. At the same time, what I didn't understand was how it would change the little things. I knew would change the big things: my body, my sleep, my daily routine, my relationship with my partner, my relationship with myself, my house, my ability to lift a car off of my child. But it also changes the way I look at the sky, traffic, television, food, time.


And what I really didn't get was the fact that I would have created a person. I knew I was going to create a baby, obviously. But that baby is a real person. And someday he'll be a man. Which is crazy. I made a man.

The responsibility of this could crush me. But I can't ever go back to not having it.

1 comment:

Mary said...

A. That is so beautiful. I had not really thought about Harper becoming a grown up, as I'm still working on that myself. Now I will have to add it to the list of things to keep me up at night.

B. Is that 3 posts in 3 days? OMG! Awesomeness.