At two it's ok. Really.
Today Veronika woke up from her nap crying and screaming. I don't know why, it happens sometimes. She had been waking up during her nap, it seemed a little bit of a fitful sleep. It was hot, she was wet and her face a mess from tears and sweat. When I came in she was sitting up in her crib and didn't want to be picked up, didn't want her tiger, nor her Pooh, she didn't want anything but sit there and cry. So I sat in the rocking chair right beside and decided to give her some time. The way her mouth curves is still the same the way it did just when she was born. Her eyes are a little swollen and the eyelids pressed together. It's not fun to watch her cry, but that part I like.
I realized I was jealous. She woke up upset, things were just not right, or they were not just right. Whatever it was she could just sit there and let it all out, the drama, the despair, the disappointment over nothing... or something, who knows. I just wished I could do it too, with the same self-assuredness and conviction. Unfortunately that's not acceptable for adults. Besides, I wouldn't even know how to do it. There are always the reasonable thoughts that explain that this moment is not so bad after all, look on the bright side, be realistic, take it easy... After that comes the analyzing: what am I really upset about, what would help me right now, am I imagining something? And last comes the guilt: I should not let myself go, look at me, what a mess, what would people think... You barely have time time to actually lose a couple of tears.
Instead, when you are two, there are no second thoughts. It is what it is, a really really lousy moment and you live it 100% just like that. You curve your lips, you scream and cry, you mess up your face and your hair and nothing, nothing can make it better. But at two you also know that someone will pick you up and you will have some apple juice and listen to "I'm a little teapot" and life will be like a song once again. Things are a little more complicated later on but the real difference is that confidence and faith which you are so desperately scrambling for as an adult and which at two is as easy as drinking from your sippy cup.
Posted at 08:54 PM on June 25, 2005