Cousins’ Babies

I pretty much looked like this when I found out the news…

 

A few days ago, my mom gave me the good news: my cousin’s wife is pregnant. I smiled, we laughed, and then I started crying.

I’m the youngest in my family, and therefore never got to have little ones in the house that weren’t, well… me. This is the difference between my friends and me: they have baby cousins, and I have cousins’ babies. My oldest cousin, the one who is soon to be a third time father, was 25 when I was born. He’s the oldest of the oldest (my dad’s older sister), and she got married young, and I’m the youngest of the youngest (my dad), who got married late. There you go.

Anyway, back to babies. I love ‘em.

I truly, truly, simply adore them so much. I don’t think I can even describe it. I just feel this connection to them (don’t let your mind make this sentence creepy). My family and friends have decided I have “baby heaven”, which contrary to its literal meaning (=where babies go when they are no longer alive) actually means I look and feel like I’m in heaven when I see babies.

As of now, I have five cousin’s babies (a new one two weeks ago!), but god willing, soon there will be eight. It’s so amazing!!!!! Two of the soon-to-be babies are girls, and the third is as of yet unknown. I can’t wait until they’re born, and we have this whole next generation in our family! Eight babies. That’s a lot. The oldest is… four? So technically she’s not a baby anymore, but still. Also, two of the new ones are meant to be born within a month of each other, so birthdays every year are going to be super cute.

I love babies!!!! I don’t think this is going anywhere. It’s mainly just, I LOVE BABIES.

Oh, I can tell you why I cried, I guess. I was in a bad mood that day, because of how horribly sick I was feeling, and my mom was trying to cheer me up a bit. I had been in school when my cousin, his wife and their two daughters came over, so I wasn’t around when the news was shared. I was alone at home with my mom, and she came and sat down near me on the couch and told me. I got this immediate grin on my face, so wide it hurt my cheeks and jaw terribly, but I couldn’t stop smiling. The two of us were smiling really wide, and then we just started laughing a bit. But instead of laughing a bit more, I started crying. The tears were falling freely. My cat, Squirt, is amazing, and I will tell you why. The second after I start crying, he’s there: it doesn’t matter where in the house I am and he is, if I start crying, he shows up and purrs next to me.

I don’t have a particularly close relationship with him, not like the rest of my family members, but the two of us (me and the cat) have come to terms with this, and we just live amicably side-by-side. He doesn’t sleep on my bed, I don’t sleep on his, but I’ll fill up his food and he won’t scratch me. That kind of thing, you know. But this, the crying dates – they mean a lot to me. Thanks, kitty.

Anywho, I started crying about the new baby, and Squirt came and purred on me. My mom didn’t want me touching my face while I had cat on me, so she brought a tissue and kind of stuck it in the collar of me shirt to collect the tears. I just kept thinking how awesome (in the literal sense awe) it is that my cousin’s wife has a person growing inside her right now, and that in a few months time she and my cousin are going to welcome another beautiful human being into their family. I may only be sixteen, and therefore wholly unready to start a family, but I already know that I have a whole lot of love in my heart, and I’m going to start my own family one day, and love each and every member with the whole of my being.

I can’t wait. I love babies.

The world can be awesome.

Yours truly,

The coolest cousin-ish thing ever,

Ella

 

Song Quote:

I was sixteen with an open heart…. When I was dumb and the world was young.

–Beautiful, Ben Rector

 

 

On a sadder note, the baby that was born two weeks ago was born into hard times. My cousin’s husband’s brother (the baby’s uncle) passed away shortly before she was born. Her middle name is his. I send all of that love that’s in my heart to the family. I can’t even imagine what you all must be going through.

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Excavations

The excavation site

Hidden beneath a pile of other important things in my drawer, lies a folder that is full to the bursting with slips of paper. Every page has some words, written at some point in my life, and when I open that folder, I travel back in time.

It’s amazing really, how I’m instantly transported to how I was feeling, where I was, and what I was doing when I wrote something down. There have been many days in my young life, but the ones that I remember the most are the ones when I had a sudden urge to write- and I took myself up on it.

Sporadically in life, pretty much from age six, I would get bouts of motivation, generally in the direction of: “I’m gonna be a writer!!! I’m gonna get published! I’m going to be in The New York Times!” During one such bout, when I was around twelve years old, I sat cross legged on my bed, and wrote something on a piece of ripped notebook paper. It was my old bedspread, the highly colorful one, and I was staring at the mirror that was glued on the back of my door (before it fell, and broke).

This is what I wrote:

   I wish my mirror were my life. When I look in my mirror, I see what I am meant to be. I see myself with a fancy hair do, all dressed up at my very own book signing. I want to be famous for my writing.

  I look in the mirror, but I don’t look the way I really do. I look like a writer, posing for a picture while she writes her next bestseller.

  My mirror is the only one that knows; knows what my life should look like.

To be honest, there are pieces written in bouts of motivation from when I was much younger than 12, but they’re slightly embarrassing, so my drawer is their permanent residence.

Besides the motivated snippets, the folder is mostly full of products of hard times. It’s sad to think sometimes that most of my poems are ones of great depression, sadness, guilt and discontent. At the same time, that’s what I use my writing for: it’s a place I can turn to when it feels like nothing else is right. To quote the great Oscar Wilde,  “Words! Mere words!… what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of flute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”

Fast-forwarding a year, I sat after quite a horrible day and wrote this (and I’m making sure not to edit myself, even though I really want to):

Why is the world such a hard place to be?

Why can’t I just spread my wings and be free?

Be heard, be known, for the things I can do,

Let it be known, that I will make it through.

 

I don’t want to think that no one will hear it,

If I fail, I won’t admit it.

I just want a chance to be heard,

Help create a better world.

 

I don’t think that’s taking it too far,

If I just keep trying,

It can’t be too hard,

I will keep reaching for the stars.

 

But it all comes back too:

 

Why is the world such a hard place to be?

Why can’t I just spread my wings and be free?

Be heard, be known, for the things I can create,

If only there wasn’t so much at stake.

 

My hopes my dreams, my innocent will,

To help the world with the best of my skills.

I can write the poem, that comes to terms with the world,

With just that single world that will be heard:

 

Free.

 

But now a tear is tracing its track down my check,

For in writing, it certainly sounds absurd.

 

At least it  has a slightly positive edge to it. Some of these transport me to a really, really bad time. Like this one:

Let’s make the bed,

Fold the dirty clothing,

Pack up our bags,

And hang up the happy drawings.

 

Throw away the tissues,

Return the garbage to its place,

Comb through our hair,

And patch up our face.

 

Strangle all those sobs,

Dry up all those tears,

Leave not one trace of sadness

“I was never here”.

 

There was a lot going on. I had no choice: life kept moving, so I had to as well. I’m worried I might be depressing you all, but I know that I also worry too much (there’s a poem about it). I’ll only share one more with you. I wrote this just last year, when I was worrying about something:

Borders are

As borders go

Separating,

Existing.

 

Some borders are paper thin, hazy, fragile,

But hold within them

The power to destruct.

 

These borders are

Long

Thin

Lines.

 

Tread carefully.

 

But the border, the line, that

Scares me most,

Is the one I balance on when I act

By the sheer power of feeling

Empathy, love, worry.

 

Then I walk the border of

Making

Things

Worse.

A single toe out of line, and that power to destruct

Is free.

 

And on that supremely uplifting note, I will now stop the barrage of sadness, and share some facts of happiness:

1. I now have a place to write regularly, and it’s full of positivity! I have self-discipline, and write regularly, and you are all lovely people, and leave me uplifting comments. I now can write of happiness, and not just sadness.
2. I have a much better support system in place than I used to. My family is as great as they always have been, but I now also have a bunch of friends that really care about me.
3. I have matured since I was 12, and though I still write poems of depression in epic proportions, I also hold on to some perspective. I have a good life, even with Fibromyalgia.
4. My math test is over! I don’t know if you feel the same way I do, but in my book, this is definitely a fact of happiness. I was stressing out about it so much, but it went really well, so now I believe all my hard work was worth it and I am happy. Next one in three weeks.

 

I hope I have now lifted your spirits after having lowered them. Otherwise, I would feel guilty. There’s a poem about it.

Wishing you all a wonderful day and happy reading,

Yours truly,

Ella

 

Song Quote:

Welcome to the inner workings of my mind. –Hurricane, Ms Mr

 

While giving my drawer a photo-shoot, I realized I was photographing one of my most prized possessions: my Song Quotes notebook. It is a beautiful little thing….

 

A hundred points to anyone who can leave a comment below stating which books are on my shelf… (hint: there are fifteen in the picture). Let the games begin!