Super Sonic   +  my head is an awesome place to live

Happy Birthday Fairy Girl

It was my Bumpy girl's third birthday last week.

We had a fairy afternoon tea party in our fairy garden and princess was very much in her element, running around in her sparkly, glittery, synthetic finest, the garden afloat with sparkles and banners and balloons and even the occasional naturally-occurring spring flower.

It was small party, without a huge fanfare or expense. It was the first time it didn't feel as though the guest attending were trying to recreate something that finished a long time, a shadow of what used to be. I thought of m husband only very briefly in a matter–of–fact, he–should–be–here–way; but the thought didn't linger and I didn't wish it to.

It's not as sad as I thought it would be, the realization that I didn't miss him this year as much as I did last year.

Or maybe it's just a different kind of 'missing'.

***

The actual day my daughter's birthday falls on, a weekday, is much the same as her weekend party– low key and quiet, only those who know it's happening even really aware it's come about.


Pic courtesy of Faerie Saerie
The three of us spend the day at a local play centre, and my children run themselves ragged over primary–colored, foam–encased obstacles that are empty except for the two of them while I type, type, type, fingers clicking across a flat iPad screen.

A small dinner, a mud cake with thick pink icing. Bath, book, bed for my children.

It's only later that night, around midnight, that I feel the pang I've been waiting for most of the day. The continuum of events seems to warp, fold in on itself... a stitch in time. And I’m back to where I was three years ago, at this very moment, this very tick of the clock. Wrapped in the warmth of a big double bed, my husband on one side, my son snuggled against him with his chubby toddler feet pushing into my back. A tiny pink newborn in the curl and crook of my arm, my body still aching from a labour that was rough and fast.

It's the happiest I've ever been.

I take it for a moment, breath it in and lay within it, soaking it up. Then I exhale, and let it go, and return to reality.

But it doesn't break my heart, not this time. How many people have that, a memory they can hold like the tiniest, most delicate paper flower; a time when they were not only happy, but knew it?

There has to be a goodness in that. There is, I know there is... I felt it.