little one.

I know this is normal. That so much of this is hormones and their effects on my brain. Much as I've experienced various hormones and neurochemicals over the course of my life - provoking anxiety, and "depression" that is a visceral pain and exhaustion.

Knowing it is normal doesn't make it easier, or even tolerable.

More provoking than the hormone-inflated anger and crying jags are the tiny but growing flames of doubt of the path I've set myself on. And some crushing feeling of claustrophobia and hopelessness that I cannot see how to find any other path NOW, fast enough, to make alternatives possible.

This little one, that I've longed to grow, and nurture, and welcome and love, for so SO long. This little one also reminds me that I've not built a life of joy, balance, quiet, mindfulness. Or even loud exuberant messiness.

I've built a life to get by. To pay the bills. To avoid appearing too odd, or colorful, or freakish, or sub-par. I submit and I subsist. Emotional tenderness, intensity, fuming anger, enthusiasm.

In my belly, with my little one, is a stand of trees, a tiny plot of dirt ready to grow seedlings, a sweet mess of a home with a hearth and hearty soup. There are twinkle lights, and collages, and cozy sleeping companions, and croaking frogs and breezes, and joyfully stomping on the Chetzemoka sand flats at low tide. There is attention to this brief moment of aliveness, the perfect cup of tea, and the most comforting of hugs from dad. Belly laughs, butt-wiggly dance parties, big brothers who are always big brothers, a mama reading Heidi and always smelling like home.

There is me, before.

I cannot fathom how to birth all that. But the rat race, the crawl, the struggle. For success, or standing, or some Thing that is disguised as the only true and lasting legacy. The attention and energy it requires, to twirl this wheel in endless circles that lead nowhere. It is untenable.

If only I could find the exit.