Twelve

Twelve years ago a complicated and stressful two days in labour had retreated smoothly like an evening tide, depositing a tiny baby at the strandline and washing gently away leaving my life quietly divided into before and after.

When the last person finally left the room and turned off the lights, I cradled the future skin to skin and began to sing.

The night was deep blue, and perfectly still. The earlier storms that had flooded part of the hospital corridor vanished without a trace. My nineteen year old self, singing in the dark, had not the first idea what the next years of our lives together would be.

Today we celebrated twelve turns around the sun, madly whirling, frequently clueless and stumbling. She's becoming a woman before my eyes, that little strandline storm baby, that little china doll of a girl who is such a bold fearless creative wild climbing creature. She wasn't ever as breakable as I first feared, yet I still very much fear not being good enough, not giving her something she might later need. Do we ever know we didn't mess it all up? Do my parents know I'm broken and whole and happy and anxious and *right where I always wanted to be, even when I didn't know what I wanted at all*?

And today we laughed and cuddled and swam and made home made pizzas - and ate carrot cake just now, at 9pm, by the dim orange light from the kitchen. My heart is still singing, still a happysad song of true love and this is what it looks like, messy and raw and real and hopeful.