To my daugther, on her birthday.

I wrote this on Wendy's first birthday.  I love it.  I wish I had written her one this year.  It's not too late, right?  Maybe that will be my next post.  But for now, I wanted to put this up.  Think of it as a sample of my work and a preview of what you will be getting when I really get this blog ball rolling.

One year ago right now I was marveling at you.  You had beautiful tiny toes and pretty little ears and you gazed right into my eyes and I knew you right then.  You were the most perfect person I'd ever met.  The first thing I said when you finally came out was "I can't believe I did it."  I still can't believe it.  I had a feeling then and now, after a year, I know for sure that I didn't do it on my own.  You helped me.  You worked with me.  You felt my pain and you were trying your hardest to make it end too.  The moment I first held you, the pain and weariness of the previous 18 hours completely left my body.  More than that, all the pain I'd ever harbored vanished.  You made everything bad that had ever happened to, by, or through me completely better.  I'd been waiting for you my entire life.  Not just any baby-- you.

 

I look at these pictures and even though I lived every moment of it, I can't begin to wrap my brain around it.  Before you I could waste away a year like nothing in the world mattered.  With you in my life, every day is important.  Every day that I get to spend being your mother is a gift that you give me.  Every morning that I wake up and you are still in my life, whether you wake up smiling or crying, I know that no matter what happens, it's going to be a good day.  I have someone to give all of my love to who will love me back with all of her being, just because.  But you should also know that I will never stop trying or working for your love, I will never take it for granted, because I can't help but feeling that it's something I should have to earn.  The way I see it, I will forever be in your debt.

You may never understand how amazing you are.  I don't know that anyone can ever see themselves the way a loving mother sees them.  You are amazing because you came from me, and I know you're made of me and your Daddy, but somehow you're more than that.  You're a tiny person who chose me to protect you and nurture you and teach you.  I will always protect and nurture and teach you every day of my life. 

I want you to know, to really understand, that my love for you is and always will be unconditional.  Not because it's a law of nature, but because I know how precious your life is.  You are a treasure.  You are a gift to the entire world.  You are bright and smart and loving and wonderful, and no matter how dim life's circumstances may get, I have seen and known that person to be inside of you from the start.  I felt it when you were in my womb and I saw it first when I looked into your eyes the day you were born.  I hope above all hope that you just find that person within yourself one day and never lose hope or faith in you.  I never will.

Happy birthday, Wendy.  I will always celebrate this day as the day that I first felt true, all-encompassing pain, and true, all-encompassing love.  I'll never forget the lessons this day taught me, and I'm sure with each yearly celebration my love for you will only continue to grow and surprise me, just as you do.

Why am I here?

I guess I've got some explaining to do.  Who am I, and what do I have to say that you need to hear?  This might be the hardest post ever.

Hi, I'm Hilary.  Nice to meet you.  As I write this, I am 23 years old, I have a 2 year old daughter (Wendy), I am about 33.5 weeks pregnant with my second child (a boy, Luke), I have been married for almost 4 years (to Ryan), and I want to be a writer when I grow up.  I also want to be a midwife, photographer, graphic designer, and professional recipe and cook-off contestant. 

I consider myself to be an Indigo Adult...that is, an Indigo Child who grew up, kind of.  What the hell does that mean?  Google it.  There are all kinds of explanations, ranging from the far out new-agey to the psuedo-scientific.  The whole spiritual side of it, well I find that fascinating but I really don't know.  I like to attempt to wrap my brain around the idea of a greater purpose and fates and all that fun stuff, and it certainly is a nice ego stroke to think of myself as more advanced like some people describe Indigos, but I don't want to get carried away with any of that.  To me, the "Indigo" classification of personality type is the one I feel best describes the set of traits I choose to recognize in myself.  So that's why I picked it for the name of my blog.  That, and when you say "Indigo Momma" out loud it sounds like some neat tribal language.

I'm one of those people who's always looking at the big picture, inferring, analyzing, contemplating.  Always, even when I really don't want to.  I can't stand to do anything just because that's what people do, that's how it's done.  If enough people tell me a movie is great and I simply have to see it, I will purposely never see it.  Before I make almost any decision, I feel compelled to explain to myself WHY I would choose that option, and if I feel like I don't have significant evidence to support my decision I must research, research, research and present myself with the findings.  There MUST be a reason for everything, always.  But I also act on emotional impulse a lot.  I am extremely emotional, but also extremely rational, and so I'm at odds with myself more often than not.  It's exhausting.  I'm drawn to the spiritual, fantastical, bizarre, and unconventional.  I'm pretty terrible socially.  I stick my foot in my mouth a lot, I allow awkward silences to hang for way too long, and I regurgitate random facts and trivia at totally inappropriate times, but I'm usually cute enough to get away with it.  I've been described as pixie-like.  I almost always have a big, dumb grin on my face, and if I don't, it probably means I'm deep in thought about something that may or may not have any relevance to the current situation.  I generally love life and the universe I live in, yet you'll find I complain a lot because in all honesty it just hurts my feelings that not everyone is as in love with everything as I am.  I guess whining is my coping mechanism of choice.

So, about the blog.  Mothering a child is extra interesting when you're the type of person who has always felt like your purpose in life is to figure out all the mysteries and intricacies of the universe.  To me, every giggle, every temper tantrum, every breath of my child is a wonder, a marvel to be observed and unraveled and interpreted.  I learn more from my two year old than I think she learns from me.  I don't live a particularly interesting life, so I thought for a long time it would be basically impossible for me to write anything of interest to anyone.  I thought I would wait until I became more interesting, until I accomplished something important or became somebody to start writing with the intention of being read.  Who wants to read about the life of a housewife?  I'm not a rock star, except in my own mind, I don't travel much, I don't think I'm terribly funny.  To most people it would probably appear that I'm living the status quo that I condemn-- I'm mostly a stay at home mom, with hobbies that I like to pretend are careers.  My husband brings home the bacon and I cook it.  We are a lower middle class family, living in an income-controlled apartment, clipping coupons, getting by day to day.  But in my mind, I've decided there is nothing more important I could possibly be doing than this:  learning all I can possibly learn about the meaning of life by pretending I know how to be completely responsible for another human being.  I think I just want to share all the things I learn.

The yearly ritual.

This happens every year. When August becomes September, I get all itchy inside. I don't know if it's some kind of subconscious developed response to the "-ber" months, or an innate, animal sense of the Earth's coming slumber. But here I am again, another year, another blog. Every year at this time, for the past 5 or 6, I've started a new blog. I feel my brain, spirit, body filling up with this sense of importance...something big is about to happen. I'm going to change, I'm going to shed my skin or spread my wings or shine my light, and I NEED to write about it. I just need to write. So I start up a blog or journal, write a few entries about how massive and relevant everything is, usually pretty-sounding but cryptic and rambling, and then October becomes November and the sense of impending greatness slips away beneath the gray cover of wintry malaise and apathy. I hope this year is different. I'm hoping this time I can stick with it. This time, I KNOW something big is coming. It's huge, life-altering, mind-blowing, universe-expanding...and it's wiggling away in my womb as I type.