there are things i want to tell you

I want to tell you about the ways being a mother pushes me more than anything I've ever done. It knocks me around. It takes my breath away. It takes me out at the knees. It grows my heart bigger.

I want to tell you about the way I can see love float through the air whenever my daughter giggles. It's like heart-shaped bubbles surround her, surround us, and I can't help but relax into myself.

I want to tell you about the ways I'm certain that I don't know what I'm doing, the days when the questions and the shoulds and the whys stack up.

I want to tell you about the moments when I wonder why it has to be so hard, why she has to push so hard against me, against the love.

I want to tell you about the moments that are full of ease, full of more joy than one person can hold, full of certainty and wide hope.

I want to tell you about the moments when I whispered to her, "All you have to do is live. Is breathe on your own. And then you can live big in this world. You can love big. You can walk beside an elephant in Africa and discover all that you love and become a superhero and just be anyone you want to be. All you have to do is live" as the ventilator whooshed beside us.

I want to tell you about the choices I've made, the mistakes, the blunders, the parenting moves I want to redo because I'm that mom whose baby girl almost died and it can be hard to get out from under that truth.

I want to tell you about the ways I'm trying to soften inside when I think about those mistakes because she's that daughter who doesn't need to think about that almost for even a second because she's so strong and living so big in this world.

I want to tell you about feeling turned inside out while also feeling certain that "yes, even this" can be the path.

I want to tell you about the ways I don't do it all, the ways I'm plowed under by the clutter and the anxiety and the "Please don't ask me one more time if we're there yet."

I want to tell you about the ways my heart keeps stitching together as another bead slides down the string and she joins in as I chant to Ganesh and later after she's in bed he looks at me and says, "Can I hold your hand?"

But instead I'm just going to tell you that each day I'm doing all that I can to set down the pushing and the almosts and the "yes, even this" sometimes to notice the way I want it to be and the way it is, and I'm building a bridge between them where I'm going to sit and dangle my feet while I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I'm building a bridge where I'm going to live.

Where we're going to live.