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Broke Wife, Big City
Impossible Girls
By Aprill Brandon
To my dearest daughter on the eve of your 4th birthday,
I will never forget the day you were born. Mostly because it’s hard to
forget when someone slits your abdomen open and pulls a human being out
of it. Then I heard your very first cry and tears welled up in my own
eyes. You sounded like a dying pterodactyl. It was a screech so
piercing it felt like an icepick was stabbing my brain. And I’m not the
only one. The nurses on the pediatric ward all agreed it was one of the
most intense caterwauls they had ever heard. One of them actually
twitched whenever you cried.
Oh, but how perfect you were. When you were sleeping.
I’ve been so lucky these past few years getting to watch you grow up. I
even had a front row seat because you were never not climbing all over
me. Four years in and I’ve peed by myself twice. Then, just when I
couldn’t take it anymore, you’d fall asleep on my chest and finally
stay still long enough to let me smell the top of your head. Which
smelled like sweat and macaroni and cheese and everything that is right
with the world.
It’s happening less and less now. The lazy afternoons listening to your
soft breathing. On the plus side, you’ve taken to climbing things other
than me. The unsecured bookcases. The door frames. The extremely large
and heavy dresser. Which just goes to show that you are a gal who won’t
take no for an answer. No matter how many times your parents scream it
at you.
Then again, what else could one expect from the girl who invented a
game called Fireball? If you are ever reading this in the future and
are wondering how you play Fireball, I can’t help you. Four-year-old
you won’t tell me. All I know is that you play it in your brother’s
room and it often involves horrific crashing noises. One time you were
playing it and you tore out of his room hollering “I’m going on the
run!” Then you grabbed a handful of Cheerios from the table, shoved
them in your mouth, and kept right on running full speed to the other
side of the house.
I’m pretty sure you won that day.
This other time you and your brother were sittining on the couch and
you asked him if he wanted to play “The Floor is Lava.” He excitedly
responded with “yes!” and you immediately pushed him off the couch with
a spectacular bang.
Speaking of loud noises, you have less of a pitter patter and more of a
brigade of war drums. You make the grand entrance of tyrants three
times your size. How something so small could make such a cacophony
while dressed like a butterfly princess is an impressive achievement.
So much so that I had to search for a word big enough to describe it
and came across “cacophony.”
You dance like you want everyone watching. You hug until it hurts. You
sing often and loud and joyously and completely off-key. You scream “I
hate you, Momma!” at least three times a day. You tell me you love me
at least ten. You love books and dirt and puddles and cats and lipstick
and Super Mario Bros.
You are nothing like I’d thought you’d be. You’re better than anything I could have dreamed of.
You make me want to tear my hair out some days. You are utterly impossible some days.
And thank god.
You are growing up in an impossible world, baby girl. It is scary and dire and exhausting and extreme.
And an impossible world needs girls like you. Fearless, strong, loud.
It needs people who love fiercely and aren’t afraid to fight. Who won’t
take no for an answer. Who have war drums for feet.
Which is why, on my worst days, the days where it all seems so
hopeless, I look at you and your wild, tangled hair. The dirt on your
left cheek. The butterfly wings and the sword. You make me want to
fight the impossible.
You make me want to be an impossible girl too.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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