Re: To my unborn child

In writing to you, I am adamant that this not sound overly lifey and made-for-tv-movie-ish. I don’t intend this to be scripted for misty eyes and warmth in your heart. I want it to be a raw, bold piece of truth, communicated to someone who has yet to be, but hopefully one day will be, a moving extension of me into the world. I’ll give you words and lessons at that point I trust, but I also want you to have words from the me that is now, the young the racing the glowing me that is raging with questions. 

 When you’re a little older and you’re painfully awkward and you’re lost and confused, I want you to have words that resound from the me that was equally lost and confused at some point.. and I was ok with it. And I want you to be ok with it. I want for you to grab hold of that which makes you glitter inside because that is what the world cannot do without. If you’re scrappy if you’re shy if you’re obnoxious if you’re uncoordinated if you’re prissy if you’re bored if if if if….. you need to take moments to remember how little that really matters. 

Should you feel aimless or purposeless, just think: Each time you breathe in and breath out let that be an assurance to you that there is someone who thinks it necessary for you to be alive. That’s some powerful shit.

Please don’t ever let the sun go down on anger. All issues needn’t be completely resolved; the problem doesn’t need to be fixed, but you can resolve to work toward a better place of mind as much as is in your power to do so. But don’t ever let yourself close the day in contented bitterness or tolerated scorn. It is these that will begin to quietly eat away at your soul. And baby, that’s something too big to put at risk just for the sake of pride and anger.

There is so much that I could write and record and research to try to set you up for a life of least-resistance, but- I don’t think that’s the point. No doubt there’s a good chance I’ll one day become a worrying and protective parent and I’ll be eating these words in favor of safety and practicality in all your endeavors.. but maybe that’s why I’d like you to have pieces of my words right now. And from 2 years from now. And 5 years from now, so that you have written accounts of my current worldview (from a time before children) that can identify more with the need for uninhibited adventure. The need to experience the world in the stunning light of risk and uncertainty at this fresh and flying age….

..to be continued..for a long long time..

..and so it goes.

There are a lot of important things I feel and I won’t say them loudly to you but maybe I’ll whisper them. Because if I say it in normal volume I’m afraid it will sound normal and therefore be normal. 

Even though, 

It’s not as though,

Things are only what they sound to be..

But it’s just what I feel.
**

I've found myself so concerned at times with the impending changes that life seems to deem necessary. I'm prematurely mourning for the things that aren't gone yet. (Granted, i do have a history of doing this.) But i've been thinking so much lately about how sad it is that many of the things and people in my life right now won't be around forever. It may seem absurd or elementary, but i just have a real hard time being ok with the fact that hardly anything lasts forever, or even a few years at that.
but the truth is... the fear, and subsequent avoidance, of loss, only inhibits the true flow of life that is the necessary give and take of existence.
and so begins a very intentional 'being ok with' process. it's a daily, active aim to warm myself up to the idea of things being temporary- purposeful in their seasonality.
it's a matter of crediting the truth of where i'm at enough to lay rest my concerns of the non-present, my worries over the past, and my fears for the future.

But sometimes I wonder, is it true that it’s always and only the ‘now’ that we've got.. ?
***

So it wasn’t really that I even thought up poetry that day. It was more like poetry came dancing and rushing and flashing toward me, encircled me and wrapped me up, scooped up my restraint and tossed it to the wayside so that I had nothing left but to write.
***