Springtime

This is the part where the lines intersect. I knew it was coming.  The part where her stories become something that aren't mine to tell. Where the heartache of watching someone grow up becomes bitterly, painfully real.  Where she comes home from school daily with a report on whether or not it was a good day based on how much she felt made fun of for wanting to splash in a puddle (which makes her gross) or how she eats her lunch. She is achingly sensitive and self-conscious and the pain of adolescence is so hauntingly near that I think of it with tears stinging my eyes sometimes.  She is disoriented by this rocking boat of someone else expecting her to be a certain way and not comprehending how someone wouldn't want to splash in puddles or get dirty or play pretend. 

When I was in 5th grade, they were doing construction on our school, so there was orange plastic fencing all around the playground to keep us away from the construction. There was a girl in my class who would spend every day at recess running up and down that fencing pretending to be the animal she chose that day (usually a horse or a wolf) and making those animal noises at the construction workers. I can still feel the way I'd get a lump in my throat and how my heart would ache and my face would flush hot to know that people viewed her as weird just because they didn't understand. They couldn't pretend and imagine like that anymore. And how on earth can my girl only be 3 years away from that age already??

Spring is bringing so much goodness.  Outside playing and so much more sunshine (even if it's pouring today!) and flowers and blooming trees and feet in the grass and dirty hands and seeds being planted almost every day.  And this.  My new project that feels so tiny and so huge and makes my heart want to burst and is the reason I've been a bit absent from this blog space right now, but it's not forever and I can't wait to share more!