if only you could see me now

When you left, you gave me so many reasons for your unhappiness, some of which I recognized even then as fluff. Yet there are other reasons that have been tucked away in my heart - reasons you offered in different moments that helped me understand how surprisingly little you knew the real me. Like that moment at the coffee shop when you told me that you couldn't see us having children...that you just didn't know what kind of mother I would be.

And at the time, even though I disagreed with the statement itself, I understood why you would think it. In the eyes of a man who helped raise his two younger sisters from the time they were babies, my uncertainty about children and my tentative behavior around the one or two babies we'd been around for very small periods of time must have seemed discouraging. But what I didn't understand was how you could equate experience around babies with potential for motherhood. I felt as though you were telling me I had no hope of being a good mother, simply because I'd been so nervous about how to hold our friends' baby when we met her for the first time.

So when my friends compliment me on how well I get along with their little ones, when they tell me how cool it is to see their little ones be comfortable around me, when they ask me to babysit for them...I wish you could hear that. When those little ones are excited to see me, or tell me that they miss me, or surprise their mommy by asking to do something with me...I wish you could hear and see that, too. Because if you could, you'd understand that my hesitance about children had less to do with inability, and more to do with unfamiliarity. You'd get to see how much I love being around my friends' children. Most importantly, you'd realize that, when the time comes for me to have little ones of my own, I will be a really good mom. Perfect? No, not in the least. But patient, loving and quick on my feet? Absolutely.

If only you were here to see that.

Where I am: Lebanon, KY
What I'm reading: Songs without Words by Ann Packer, and The Lady & the Panda