a letter for my now
By DeAnn Knighton
In 2003, I was 23 years old. I had already been married and divorced. I had rejected the religion of my upbringing and was isolated from familiarity. I had recently pulled myself out of the abusive relationship that had followed the dissolution of my first marriage. It was a groundless time. I was fixated on my own survival and not much else. My nervous system was obliterated, and I had started to find ways to numb.
I was also writing a little poetry and music as an outlet for the emotions I had buried; the ones that would kill me if I let them surface. I’m pretty sure I was imagining that my writing was incredibly inspired and that I would be the next Sarah McLachlan. Survival mode brings out overconfidence and denial that can serve one well when needed.
In a little notebook with a zebra on the cover, I wrote a poem to my future daughter. I stumbled on this a few months back and it has been on my mind. An echo of the past that was as startling as it was expected? I am not sure which one more so. Let’s go with both.
There is nothing better than two opposing thoughts simultaneously being true.
Here it goes:
“She’ll be just like me but smarter
She’ll be strong like me but harder
She see what she wants and grab it
She’ll know what is right over habit
She’ll trust herself & know her soul
She’ll set her sights & reach the goal
I’ll stand by & watch her grow
Knowing I’ve made something wonderful
She has to be better than me
She has to know more
It has to be easier for her
I must clear the path & let her see
She can be more powerful than me
I think of what she will become
Something huge from what I’ve begun
My pride in her will let me rest
Knowing she will be the best
It has to be why I am here
My meaning is becoming clear
I have failed in so many ways
But she will learn from my mistakes
Just trust your heart and know our soul
And you will be something wonderful
Just find your dream & make it real
I will live in you, my love is here.”
Wow, where does present day DeAnn begin? First, some questions to the author. Wait—wait, no, first of all, let’s start with: “Sweet Girl, I love you. Thank you for getting me this far.”
Now, some questions:
Why do you think your own story is already done?
How can you believe your daughter will love herself, if you don’t show her how?
Why are you pressuring her to be the best, before she has even taken a breath?
How will basking in her glory somehow make your existence more meaningful?
Why would you put that pressure on her when you know her life is hers?
Why does she have to know what is right? What IS right?
Why does she have to know what she needs to be fulfilled?
Why can’t simply living be fulfilling?
My heart breaks a little for myself when I read these words. I work hard these days to not break my own heart, but it’s taken some time. This ode to my unborn daughter was nothing short of a swan song for my own life. A life that at that time I viewed, as beyond repair. It is no surprise that I lived my next 20 years as if it was: as though life was already over.
Lost in the belief that normal things were not for me, but for other people.
I did not have a daughter. I hustled for things I did not even want. I buried myself in work, food, shopping, and alcoholism. At any given time, I was anxious, depressed, or numb. Already resigned to the fact that the human experience was not for me.
So here I am in 2021, age 41. I’m sober. I am still anxious and depressed sometimes, but I feel other things too. I am having a human experience and sometimes it sucks and sometimes it’s amazing. I can look at myself objectively with a love I never felt possible. Every version of me. Even the one that wrote that shitty poem.
I am in the sunset of my natural procreation years and it’s unclear if there will ever be a “she” or “he” or “they” to receive wisdom words from me in the way that I am sure I was envisioning when I wrote the poem above. I have moments of fear around that, but I also experience a lot of comfort in the mountain of possibility still laid out in front of me. I am no long grieving an un-lived life. I certainly no longer believe that my story is done. Far from it.
So today, I want to write another poem. We can call it so many things. A letter to my unborn child? A letter to a child I may never have? A letter to a child that is already alive somewhere. Maybe it is a letter to my younger self? A letter to that sweet girl, who got me here now? I don’t like that as much because that means I live in regret about the path that got me here. I work hard to not do that anymore.
So who is it for then?
The person it was always for. The me I am now.
May she never stop changing.
