In Between Dreams

Maybe it's now that the dust has cleared. The frantic pace of protecting a newborn baby, to usher it into heart-i-ness. Maybe it's the stillness of my days. Maybe I'm thinking too much.

But I feel weird. There is no greater abrupt change to your being than Birth. No. I spoke too soon. Death mirrors it. Death changes you too. Abruptly.  I've been too blessed to know great tragedy. But the light of birth changes you too. Abruptly.

Babies come like trains. You can hear its horn. See its light from months away. You kind of sit on the tracks, waiting. You cower under your arms. In the 9th month, your bulbous body feels the full-formed body under your skin. You know its coming...but what will the impact feel like? How long it will take to put back the pieces into a whole new whole? You vacillate between fear and exceptional joy.

Then, IT HITS. Labor. Birth. Light. Love.

It doesn't just 'start a whole new chapter.' No. It closes the book on that last life. Opens a brand new one. It's that different.

I feel kind of murky now. The old easy life is still fresh in the mind. But fading as memories do. The ego is re-defining, I can feel that. I'm learning to discard the old wants and desires. They are more habit than anything. Impractical. I can't stay up later, I have to get up...in the middle of the night....and in the early morning...I need my sleep...

I think that's where the weirdness lies: In between dreams. I'm riding inside the train now, but in the back caboose.  I'm reacting to my life in lag time. As the train barrels forward, I am feeling the need to change cars, to start stumbling towards the front of the train. I want a better view. I want to see where this is going, as opposed to where it's been.


Anyone else feel like this as their baby rounds the five month marker? Like they are coming out from under a rock, seeing the world with brand new eyes?