Do you Still Listen to Chico Buarque at Night?

There is no way to summarize my experience over the last few months...

I wonder how I will look back upon this time of my life in a few years. Even in a few months...

You can only imagine what it is like before it happens. And then....it is nothing like you imagine. Strange. I had heard it was like an expanding of your heart, to hold another person so dear.... but it is so much more than that. It is more like an expanding of your entire being, to the point where it bursts and dissolves into the background, replaced by an ever expanding view of another being. This beautiful little creature, wholly unknown, and yet oddly familiar, looking at you with the most mysterious, unblemished expression.

And to think...this is my beautiful little creature. What an extraordinary and downright shocking statement that is. It still does not feel real.

But like everything in my life, it is always a sign of importance the less real something feels to me. A permanent state of awe, astonishment, disbelief that something this blessed and beautiful has been given to me. The shining eyes of a rabbit....

I have been in no state to write for quite some time now. It all happened so fast at the beginning of June, so unexpected. I know a little better my own limits, to say the least. It has made me feel weaker in all the right ways.... and awakened me to a strength and self-awareness I did not know I could ever achieve. In many ways, I feel peace like I never thought I could before. A sort of completeness, despite many circumstances in my life still being left messy and undone. It is as if I was able to endure pain beyond anything I could have previously imagined, gracefully. It leaves me with feelings of hope. A renewed persistence in the face of what is certain to be endless struggle for the remainder of my days, and the days of those that I love.

I'll be here, as firm as the ground.