Itchy

I’m sitting still. Trying to be in this moment. Trying to savor it. To breathe it all in.

I know, in the long view, that moments like these are rare. They’ve been rare in the short view too. She won’t be like this forever. She won’t always fit so perfectly, cuddled within my arms. She won’t always call out for us at night. She won’t always find such joy in sleeping in our bed. Not forever. Someday her beautiful little head won’t find it’s greatest comfort on my shoulder.

It does now.

But now I’m thinking of other things. I’m sitting still but my mind is moving at great speeds. I’m itching with the things I need to do. Lists of tasks and errands and things tingle just below the surface of my skin. I want to make the itching stop. I want to just be.

I focus on the walls. The monkey decals I put up before she was born. The painting my aunt gave her that first Christmas. I think of quieter moments in this room. When I wasn’t so itchy.

I long for those moments. The quiet. So precious. (‘precious’ seems to be my word these days).

My first resolution for 2012, the same resolution I made for 2011, and 2010, and 2009: to learn to quiet my mind, to be present in each moment.

To savor it. And breathe it all in.