i really want to tell you...

I really want to tell you that there's something so magical about spring in the Pacific Northwest, and I wish you were here so I could show you how the blooms on the fruit trees stitch my heart back together (they might stitch your heart back together) as they swirl into puddles on the ground. I really want to tell you that I am certain that you made someone have a better day today just by the way you're showing up in the world. That smile you gave, the way you held the door open, the way you listened, that moment when you let that car merge when no one else would, the music you were playing while making dinner, that moment you said, "thank you," that decision you made to send a text and check in...those little ways you are you make the world a better place. I really want to tell you that I know some days it feels like we're walking through a sticky mess of "how the hell did I get here?" AND somehow we're still walking. Can you feel what that means in your bones? We get that it is hard, but we keep showing up. Side by side. (Isn't that a miracle?) I really want to tell you that sometimes I default to insisting that I'm alone in the midst of it all, but I've found that my friends won't let me pitch a tent there anymore. They look at me (sometimes that might mean over the phone or via text or Marco Polo {get that app!}) and they say, "I'm here. You aren't alone. Even if you try to be, you're not." And I'm so damn glad that I listen to them. I really want to tell you that being a parent pushes me to edges I didn't even realize I had. And yet, I'm sitting across from this little girl as I type this, this warrior girl with "I dissent" superpowers and a huge heart and a sense of humor that makes me literally snort with laughter, and I see her. I see who she is. And I feel the ways she makes me stand up in my warrior self. I watch her concentrating with a tiny smile on her lips, and I let the gratitude rush in beside the heartache and my whole body relaxes as I smile knowing we are okay. I really want to tell you that you are beautiful. That you are not alone. That you are making the world (your world) a world I want to live in as you show up as you. Yes. Yes. Yes.

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