They Did Not Tell Me

If you want to hear from a lot of experts, all you have to do is get pregnant and have a child. (So easy!) Suddenly, these experts will tell you everything you need (or not need) to know about having a child, becoming a parent, becoming responsible for another human life.

What they didn't quite tell me, though, is this: I will give life to my daughter, but I will cling to her for the rest of my life; she gives me life. She is my life.

They did not tell me that I will search for her face in a sea of strangers and find her in a blue butterfly costume and my heart will not know what to do with the joy and pride that will fill every nook and cranny of my heart with such a force that it will make me cry.

They did not tell me that her absentminded way of pushing hair away from her face would make me think of the impossibility and possibility of perfection existing in such a distraction.

They did not tell me how incredibly difficult it would be to leave her behind, asleep, unaware that I have left. That I would count all the millions of things we could have done together had I stayed home. 

They did not tell me how her face when I return would bring such utter relief; that I would spend the whole day with only that face to keep me going.

They didn't tell me that when I cuddle her, it is as if I am holding, in my inadequate arms, all my yesterdays and tomorrows. That while there is a constant undercurrent threat of mortality, there is forever in intertwined fingers. That she will look for the perfect spot between my shoulder and breast and nestle, and I will let her settle and I will contort my body and any permutation of our unified form will feel most natural. 

They did not tell me. And so what am I to do now?