The Girl With Curls Like A Halo

Posted on November 25th, 2009 by Your Aunt Becky

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You should totally read my interview with my homie Sci-Fi dad: “Thinking is Hard” here. And my Slate.com interview ran simultaneously here, on The Happiness Project, which is a really neat blog run by my friend Gretchen. She’s a thousand times cooler than me, so you should read her.

And then I need more people to interview me because I am officially done with interviews, except those that I conduct in my head. SO SOMEONE INTERVIEW ME. PLEASE.

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Every year when my son Ben has to write a “This Year I’m Thankful For” letter, it reads sort of like this:

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am thankful that you buy me sheets. And blankets.

This would lead you to believe that I have him chained in the basement somewhere, perhaps duct-taped to a wall, shivering, only to be tossed a blanket when I’m feeling particularly benevolent. And well that is obviously true, it’s not.

That, of course, written by the same child who recently sent home the answer to the question, “Where would you take Mom for her birthday?”

McDonald’s because it’s my favorite and we eat it every day.

I may have junk in my trunk, Internet, but I do NOT eat McDonald’s EVERY day.

So it’s clear that my son, while he’s fanciful, is also pretty full of The Awesome, because that note is SO on my fridge because I laugh every time that I see it. Not only did he not answer the question because he didn’t pick out my favorite place, he also told his teacher that we eat fast food every day.

I’m thinking we’ll watch Super Size Me for Thanksgiving. Should be very uplifting, I’m thinking. Then it will make me very hungry.

Today is the day before American Thanksgiving, though, and because no one is actually going to be reading blogs tomorrow, save for my spam bots, which are either sending me really punny jokes, insulting me, or selling me knock-off prescription drugs, I figured that today is probably the day to Be Thankful.

And since the only person in the house to regularly write stuff ABOUT being thankful is 8, I don’t exactly have a killer model to choose from unless you want to hear how much I heart q-tips (orgasm in my ear!) or bath towels (orgasm on my ass!).

So I’m going to buck Ben’s model and go out on my own here and surprise the shit out of all of you.

Your Aunt Becky is thankful for this year.

Probably one of the worst, hardest years of my life so far, (made even worse by the Eggo waffle shortage!) and if given the option to have it any other way, I’d say no.

Because even in the darkest times, when I thought that I was suffocating under the weight of what I was carrying, when my fears crushed my chest and it was all that I could do to breathe in and breathe out and the rushing in and out of air seemed to fill the whole world and I didn’t know how I was going to go on, I found myself.

I did go on.

Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours and I lived and grew in those spaces between where I thought that I was going to burst apart at the seems, the fear, the weight, the terror pressing down. The days when I hurt so badly that nothing anyone could do ever helped, and my throat felt tight and the tears were always so close, those days eventually wore away. Slowly, they drifted away.

In their wake, I stand now, a different person.

I’ve lost friends, lost respect for people, I’ve seen who will stand beside me, and who is content to stand back. I am not who I was and I am thankful.

Today, I am thankful for my daughter Amelia, who, in her 9 months on the planet, has shown me more about who I am than I have learned in the 29 years before her. My sweet cinnamon girl, my Emma Gracie, the one who lived, my only daughter, the girl with curls like a halo, for who you are and what you have taught me and the light you have shown me, I am thankful.

Today and always.

Emma Gracie 2

Emma's Halo

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