in between you & I

“Mama! Follow me mama! I want to show you my world!”

It’s too far away honey, I won’t make it there, I’m too tired.

“Don’t worry mama! It’s ok to be tired you just have to believe in this place. Trust me mama, I take you there! It feels so good there and FREE. We can play and smile and you just get to play as YOU, Mama! You don’t have to play as anyone else!”

I am coming sweetie, I promise. Slow and sluggishly at times, and rapidly running at others, but I promise baby, I am coming.

“We move, express, dance and flow as the free vessels that we are. We speak in our own language here. We move as our bodies tell us to move here. We listen to our own heart here. It is like we are fully alive, all of you mama, all of you can be fully alive!”

I want it more than anything honey. I want to be there with you, more than anything.

“Ready?”

I used to count down the hours in the day, and now, I sink a little when you fall asleep.

I don’t want them to end. Because I miss them, already.

I miss the moments where I wished I was there. Connected, and alive, and immersed in your world.

I wish I had the smile to reflect back at yours.

I wish I had the energy to harmonize with your laughter.

I wish I had the breath to breathe into your belly.

I wish I had myself in this moment, to become one with you.

So here I am, grieving a life I never lived because of fear, PAIN, doubt, WORRY, and INSECURITY.

And my legs are heavy with the ache of loss and lack, because they are tired of running.

Running to try and capture it all.

Running to try and escape it all.

If only for this moment, I could be there, with you, all of you, in y(our) world.

I am missing the moments I could have spent playing with you in your world, instead of cursing the illusions inside mine.

I am missing people I never met because I was too afraid to speak up.

Grieving conversations I never had because of suppression of expression.

Starving for the joy I never felt because I was too busy worrying, distracting, running.

Yearning for the creation I filtered away out of my own judgement and criticism.

Longing for the flow of life I paralyzed with my perfectionistic plague.

In between you & I, is grief.

In between you & I, is a space I wish I could fill.

Is a space I wish didn’t exist.

Is a space I long to merge, with my presence.

I want you, with nothing standing in between.

“Mommy! Mommy! Are you coming or not? There is still time, you know! It’s not too late!”

Here I am sweetheart, take me.

I miss the moments where life stepped in between you & I. And because of you, instead of stepping away, I long to fully immerse myself in life.

There she goes, and all I want to do is hold her. I spent so much time before you could crawl, thinking, waiting, wishing, for the moment when things would just get easier. When you can crawl, at least then I will have two arms and free hands and maybe then I could make myself a meal.

When you were a newborn, and I felt so swamped into the world of being an on demand milk factory, that I remember counting down the weeks of

Then I could this, then I could that, fill in the blank, let it be your delayed gratification because it is, delayed, and dead, and never coming. The only satisfaction that will ever exist is here in the presence of the present. With you. now. No matter how long I stare at you, hold you, or breathe into your baby belly, I feel it will never be long enough.

I’m sitting here in deep honesty and transparency. It is a guiltless, shameless sense of loss. I run into this battle frequently and I know I am not alone. Sometimes, when I look back at her first year, my body fills with heartache.

because inside is a powerful force within me who knows there is more. Who is connected to a deep craving for more, more of life, more of love, more connection, more of myself, more joy, because I am drained by the vacancy of the void. The anxiety void of connection. the worry void of faith. The sadness void of passion. The void of momentum. The depletion void of vitality.

I long to be one with you. Now, and forever more.

Here’s to the dissolution of exhaustion and emotion translating to negativity. I can be tired, I can be sad, I can feel what I feel, but that is not who I am.

Not who I am as a mother, as a woman, as a creator.