Dear Son,
I haven't written much about the day you were born, and there is one, simple reason for this: sometimes trying to use words to describe something indescribable is silly. I'll never forget that day, ever ever ever, and it's the one day of my life I'm not worried about documenting because it just takes one moment to bring me right back there. That day was one year ago exactly, and it was one of the two best days of my life. The other? The day I put on a big dress, drank too much and took your dad's (and your!) last name.
This entire year, through milestones and sleepless nights and exhaustion and all those germs (seriously, when will that stellar immune system of yours kick in?), there has been one constant thread of thought for me and that's been that I can't possibly deserve a boy such as you. You prove the humbling fact that sometimes our realities exceed our dreams because on the best and brightest day before you, I could never have imagined you. You blow every dream I ever had so far out of the water, I now forgo daydreams and just look at pictures of you instead.
I recently re-read some of the emails I wrote you this year and one of them said, "sometimes I think your dad has been waiting his whole life to talk to you." I don't remember writing that, but I'm so glad I did as that seems to be the best way to say what your dad and I constantly feel, that we've been waiting our whole lives to talk to you and play with you and know you. We had it good before, and we still miss all those mornings we used to sleep till noon, but how did we make it so long without you? I'm sometimes dumbfounded because, my oh my, you're so much fun.
I regret some things from the past year and most of those regrets come in the shape of how I fell short of being the mom you deserve. My brow was furrowed a lot, my voice was raised too often, my muscles tense and wound up and I probably said "no" to you 85 kajillion times. More than anything else in this great, wide world I want for you, I want you to enjoy your life. I want you to be happy, to have loads and loads of fun, to be a kid for as long as possible. There has never been a greater reason in this world for me to lighten the hell up than you. You make me want to forget the laundry and play with a soccer ball for an hour straight. You remind me that schedules are good, but going to the park on a whim is better. Responsibility and paying our bills in a timely fashion and grocery shopping are all important, but making vroom-vroom! noises and laughing really loudly and eating dessert first, well those things are necessary.
I wanted you to be a boy. Have I ever told you that? There's this weird unspoken rule that women want girls and men want boys but, no no, not me, Kyle. I wanted a truck-loving, rolling-in-the-dirt, smelly boy. For a lot of hard-to-articulate reasons but mostly because I knew I needed you to breathe life back into me. I take things too seriously and I knew, in my bones, that I needed you to help me loosen up, forget all those crazy rules and just smear pears on my face every once in a while. You are my boy, my guy, my man. I knew it was going to be you.
I made this video for you (fine, for me too) and included one song I will print out and frame and hang on your wall until you are a surly teenager who could care less his mother loves him, who will roll his eyes and take it down and sneak out the house and think up new and creative ways to piss me off. Even then, I will say these words in my head (while thinking of new and creative ways to ground you) because if there's only one thing you should know, Kyle, it's this: you'll never have to do a thing to earn my love. It's an unchangeable part of who you are, like your brown eyes. You'll doubt that love a lot, especially when I won't let you do something you really, really want to do, like act stupid. But, no matter what, I love you I love you I love you.
How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough, is forever enough
How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough
Cause I'm never, never giving you up
Untitled from shelikespurple on Vimeo.
Happy birthday, buds.
Love,
Your Mama