Vivian Cinco

A little over 5 years ago, something began to change.

My face was oily. My boobs broke bras. Things…moved.

One, two, three little sticks, little pink lines and that was all.

I was about to become a mother, and I cried in terror.

*********************************************

5 years is a long time, at least when you stop and think about it. It’s a solid chunk-you can get shit DONE in 5 years, right? You can grow as a person, you can build a house, see the world, grow your hair long. Things happen. It should feel long, shouldn’t it?

But it doesn’t. It hasn’t, and yet it has, 5 years being the longest in my life, full of change and redemption and screwing up and everything we humans are best, and worst at.

My oldest daughter, Vivian, is now 5 years old. 5 years ago she quietly screamed her way into this world, and into the arms of her bewildered mother. (Her father handled the whole thing a little better) 5 years ago we held the arms of a life, and blessed it and wished it all the wonders and glories that our world can hold. Our little girl, so happy and loving, almost from the first. Wide eyed, curious and alive-vividly alive as she lived up to her name, to the life divine inside her.

She named herself, in dream, walking with me at about this age that many years ago as she slept under my heart, her hand warm in mine.

She has grown. From a tottering infant to a boisterous toddler to a precocious preschooler to the girl who goes forth now, the true daughter, shining, her voice loud and strong. I catch glimpses of her now and wonder where all the time really has disappeared to, how it slipped through my fingers while I was busy with other things. I’d stop occasionally, remarking how cool the time was but I couldn’t catch it, not really. I couldn’t hold it in my hands and honor it as maybe I should have.

And now, my baby girl is gone, and in her place stand this girl child, the woman to be, this creature I’ve nurtured and warmed and fed for 5 long years. She stands there ready, and aware, eager for her future, lusting for it.

She’s Peter Pan to me now, flying in the sky, arms aloft, pulling everyone else along with her, teasing, cajoling, laughing, always laughing, her voice on air neither birds nor star dust. She smiles so hard it breaks my heart again and again, makes me miss the future already.

*********************************

Today marks an unofficial end of part of your life, you my first born, my dream daughter. I give you only the sweetest of blessings and wishes today, as I am eager for what is about to unfold.

Happy Birth Day my dear one.