Passing Time

I just finished reading a book called Half Baked: The story of my nerves, my newborn, and how we both learned to breathe, by Alexa Stevenson. There was a passage she recounted from her own journal around the time she brought her preemie daughter home from the hospital, when she was already 4 months old and just passing her actual due date.

The way Ms. Stevenson articulates her perception of time and of her growing child resonated with me. I could not have said it better myself. Literally. I am not that eloquent of a writer.

"I was all too aware of time passing, however, which turned out to be the most difficult usual difficulty of all. Every once in a while I would lie in bed staring at Simone in her bassinet next to me, and feel a pain the felt positively medieval, like I was being emotionally drawn and quartered. Babies, by nature, are impermanent, and the knowledge filleted me. I didn't WANT Simone to get older. I would have liked her to remain my smiling, milk-scented newborn forever. I knew this was horrible of me, and selfish - I should have delighted in the thought of watching my daughter bloom into independence, but I didn't, at least not always. Partly, it seemed like all these different, future Simones were separate people, each cruelly killing her precendent. Sure, I'd probably love the little girl Simone, and the older-still Simone she'd become, but I also resented this stranger, deeply, because she was going to steal my baby from me. I wondered if, when I was very old, I would still miss my missing baby. It seemed unfair I couldn't keep her."

And again later ...

"Sometimes, I just stare at you, unable to believe you are really here, and really mine. When I pluck you from your crib in the morning, I feel overwhelmed by my luck, and your sweetness.

Everyone says that time goes fast with children, and while I always assumed the years would skid by, I was surprised at how damnably short the hours are as well. There is never enough space in a day for all the things I want to do with you, and mostly, I just manage the basics, and tell myself that tomorrow we will do more. But I never catch up, and you are already outgrowing your first clothes.

... Every minute I spend with you is a good one, and there will never be enough of them."