Assume the Perpendicular

As we approach 2012, I feel myself burdened with an odd sort of weight, a deep sadness in the midst of so much joy. I remember so clearly what I felt like this time last year. I was so excited for the new year, the year that would bring my baby. I was eager for the calendar pages to turn, but this year I just want to find a way to make time stand still. I wish it could be 2011 forever.

A mother’s love is so heavy. It rests on my chest while I sleep and on my shoulders when I am awake. Some days I think I can’t bear it. I can’t bear her growing up. I can’t bear to see her babyhood vanishing before my eyes. I can’t bear to think back on her newborn days and know that they are gone forever. I can’t bear the year of her birth passing.  And while it is so difficult to know that there is nothing I can do to keep her as she is, to hold on to my precious baby just this way, thinking about the unknowns of her future are ever more difficult. 

I know that it is my task to give her the best life possible, and I’m so unsure how to go about it. There are monumental decisions to be made, and I’ve never felt so conflicted. I thought when I was younger that I would always be able to easily know what was right, but now I am so torn over so many things. I used to have such a clear picture of my future, and now all I say when anyone asks is “I don’t know.” I don’t know if we’ll move back to Phoenix or if we’ll stay in the Bay Area. I don’t know how long we will stay in this apartment. I don’t know when or if I will go back to work. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what is best for us. I try to find comfort in the fact that none of these questions have to be answered immediately, but I turn them over and over again in my head constantly, and I part of me fears I won’t ever feel at peace until we have everything settled, with a  house of our own in whichever city and the certainty of staying there until our children are grown.

So here’s to uncertainty, I suppose, and to growing up in many different senses, and to 2011, the best year of my life.