i was born on June 29, 2006.  i was alive before that but i don’t really remember myself.  so this life, the one i’m living right now, started when my daughter evelyn was placed in my arms.  it started when she latched onto my breast and began to suck–as if to suck my old life out and replenish it with something new.  something much, much better.

what happened before my birth is peripherally important, i suppose.  some might object to me defining myself only as a mama.   but that’s the truth.  my beautiful truth.  every moment of my past life was a moment spent waiting for my children.  i mistook my reckless restlessness for something else.  i didn’t know i was waiting for my life to begin.

when i was born i felt the instant sting of naked vulnerability as i held my tiny reason for living tight.  this could all be taken from me and i would have nothing.  i would be nothing.  i was, i am only a mama.  almost as terrifying, i could be taken and who would protect my little creature?

she could, she would destroy me.  it sounds awful.  but slowly the sharp angles of my raw emotion began to soften as i allowed myself to feel the joyful love that was propelling my fear.  the love.  it plunged deep and penetrated my soul.  it ran parallel…and perpendicular to the terror.  and i knew that these emotions would  live in conflicted harmony for the rest of my life.

as i hungrily drank in every inch of my child, i began to experience the love explosions.  love explosions.  the fluttery, shivery, tingly feeling that i get when there is so much love that it clogs the veins of my essence.  and then, all at once, it gushes forward and overwhelms me and shakes me to my core.  love explosions.