A POST WHEREIN I START TALKING ABOUT HAIR AND THEN END WITH A BABY

My hair is going to be long forever.

At least, until it isn't.

I thought long and hard about giving it the good ol' hack the other week. I hadn't even realized that it had gotten ridiculously long until the flood of "your hair is so ridiculously long!" comments started pouring in.  "Oh.. it is??" I would ask, which has recently turned into, "Oh..I know.  It needs to go." But then, while Sloane had her fingers intertwined all up in my hair while I was having a particularly good hair day, I decided I would keep it around.  It's doing this thing now that because it's so heavy, gravity is keeping it in check. It's less poofy and more hippie-swing.  Maybe I'll give myself a little trim and see how I long I can keep this mane manageable.  Or maybe next week I take a pair of scissors to my head, but for now I looked up tips on taking care of long wavy hair and ordered some things online to keep this mane healthy and low maintenance.  Will report back.

I wore K,'s shirt to work today because I wanted to wear something baggy and it wasn't done on purpose to reflect my mood, but I guess it sort of did.  Trying to put a finger on why this film of glum and funk has descended over my head and down all around me to filter my world, but I do know that last night, I found myself unsettled, distracted and anxious and had the worst time trying to fall asleep.

It probably has something to do with the recent deliberation about undertaking a daunting thing yet again, failure be damned. but this fear of failure just won't die? And am I ever going to get out of this debt? And will things work out? And will I be able to tell my daughter one day that I am proud of what I am doing with these ambitions in my harbor? Am I really going to be able to sacrifice every spare moment studying? Am I going to be able to clean and organize my entire home like I am always thinking I should do?  On most days, the answer to these questions is a yes yes yes, and I can do it, and everything will be okay, and see how blessed I am? But today, the answers sound more like, I don't know, do I care, and what am I doing. I would really like to shut my mind down for a little while, but these words I write here have battled to climb out of my fingers and onto this page.  So.

During my lunch break, I read a few more stories in "The Knife Thrower" by Steven Millhauser and will you understand what I'm saying when I say that sometimes reading a well crafted page of words is like throwing a security blanket around my shoulders and snuggling in?  The stories here are eery, allegorical, and sparse, and were exactly the kind I was in the mood for.  What is this mood? I'll figure it out.  And I'll do all the requisite things to make my way through it, eventually.  For now, I am just going to stay still for a little bit.

And I am going to keep enjoying the present moment while I catch my breath. Because this I do know -  every single day, I am over the moon excited to see my daughter at the beginning and end of it.  Sloane, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, you are becoming one of my great sources of I am happy to be alive and here in the present.  Am I confused and fearful about how to move forward? Yes.  Am I hopeful and filled to the brim every time I look at her? Yes.  And that is that.

Fear is everywhere and can exist like a layer of mold over everything if you let it.  Don't let it.

I came home to the smiling and comforting presence of my mother-in-law and cousin-in-law and we all watched S. march around the room and had dinner together and I reveled in the hum of dinnertime activities and let my mind forget whatever thing I was worrying about.

And then my day ended with this:

With this bundle of love. I spent a good hour and a half just staring at this very new baby and thought about a perfect maker who formed this tiny being into existence and filled her with the life and potential and hope and grace and growth and newness and cycles and the capacity to love and be loved and trust and learn, and it was all almost more than I could bear.

I am always on the brink of a miracle, I tell myself.