I was reading another blog the other day – probably while you were flitting about, naked except for purple rubber boots, yelling for Dora and waving a bagel high in the air. The bagel was my idea.
The feed reader has brought to us something of a sort of sanity, because sometimes, I’m too bored or annoyed to watch you continue to, say, “stir” your cereal all over the floor. And so, these moments I take to look into other people’s lives can be the energy that coffee cannot sometimes provide me.
An example? Oh, don’t worry, I always have examples. It will drive you mental, just like it did your father. Especially when I consistently ask you for examples. Wanna bet on it? I think we should – it’s time you started putting some money into the kitty, anyways.
Dooce wrote her monthly newsletter to her daughter, Leta. Month 48. Meaning she was four years old. Got that? Still with me? (See, it’s really annoying, isn’t it?) What she said, it got me a little choked up because it was the things that I wish I could say and think and live. I need to believe that you’re here for a purpose and that you belong with me – that I’m doing what’s right for you. When I’m not letting you run around bare-assed with pastries, that is.
To be even more clear, she said:
Just yesterday I got a letter from a reader of my website who said she felt inspired to send me the story of her son who died when he was very young, how she feels that he had chosen her as a mother before he was born because she was the one best suited to take care of his specific needs before he died. I’m not a very spiritual or religious person, but her story was something I desperately needed to hear yesterday if only as a means to give me some perspective. And however asinine it sounds, it helped yesterday thinking that you were sent to me for very specific reasons, that something inside of me is supposed to be called upon in regard to who you are as a person. You are unlike any other kid I’ve known, more challenging, more stubborn, often more cantankerous. And maybe I’m the one who is supposed to be able to see through all that and realize it’s because you’re smarter, more intuitive, and often more sensitive. And not just because we are bound together by blood, but because certain situations and relationships in my life previous to you have prepared me for what you can throw. It’s a comforting albeit fantastical thought that maybe you knew before I did that you’d really need me. So just in case, I want you to know that I’m honored you had so much faith that I was up to the task.
I couldn’t have said it better, myself.
