A chapter

Dreaming of beach days...

When I was a wee one, or so my mama tells me, we spent the summer at the beach. And as a mama myself now, with my own oh-so-pale little one, who clings to me not only all day but night too, I choke at the thought of this. My very independent mama with me attached to her leg all day long while all she wanted was to jump into the ocean and shake me off...? Yes, I can imagine her gritting her teeth and wishing I would strike some independence and get off her leg. But it's funny, thinking that way. Because now, having a little one who is my every night dinner helper (if not in my arms, watching every movement on the stove or cutting board, she is perched behind the refrigerator door, playing with empty egg cartons and jabbering away to herself and/or the mice in the wall...) I understand the need of taking deep breaths, and not thinking anything of it. This is our lives right now. So here we are.
And something about that makes it feel less of a challenge. Once in a while, when you get to go for a walk by yourself, or go to the store alone- that is when you notice the solitariness of being with just your own thoughts.
I suppose that each of us needs that breath... those moments we can remember what it was like to be in our own skin and utterly unneeded by another.

But considering the beach. I know that when I go, I bring a blanket and shade of our very own. I know I bring sunscreen enough to last and sunhats and towels and snacks for my little fish (the big girl) who will only leave the water when her lips are blue and she is starving enough to fall faint on the blanket, teeth chattering and temper nearly bringing her to tears. Mama has the job of preparation, and don't you forget it. "Where is my water bottle???" she has asked me on countless occasion when I try and remind her six times to bring it to the car, and two hours later, she realizes she doesn't have it.
(ah...)

This is when I imagine other mamas. My own. My grandmother.
Watch my girls with all the love I would easily be able to bestow on a stranger, that somehow is bit more challenging when you live it day to day. I love my girls. I love them so much every single day my heart and soul ache with it.
And I have made complete peace with this is my life right now. I live this time now, another time later, and the times before this? They were before this. Every time will come to a close and something will replace it.
That's just it. That is how it happens.

So today? Well. It hasn't happened yet. But I would be willing to bet in about five years, when my little fish is 12 and my baby is 6, everything will be a chapter of a new story. Changing every day, slowly but surely. And so fast we had better not blink.