Dear You,
I want you to know how badly I want to keep you. I’ve wanted you for a while now. I knew you were here immediately and I couldn’t help but to be giddy. I can feel your presence and it’s pretty incredible. I want you to know that if it were up to me, I’d be meeting you in February. Unfortunately for both of us, it’s not up to just me. There’s someone else involved. Someone who doesn’t know you like I do. He would be your dad if I was to keep you. See, he didn’t have a happy childhood and now that I’m thinking about it, he hasn’t had much of a happy life. So he doesn’t see the beauty of bringing you into this world. He sees it as something scary and difficult. I guess I can see that side of it too. But I’m more excited than scared. Knowing you’re there is so comforting. I’m suddenly never alone. And though you are merely a ball of cells right now, I can feel you. So because I cannot meet you in 9 months, I wanted to tell you what kind of life you would have been joining.
Your dad and I met in California. If you were here, I wouldn’t tell you where but since you aren’t going to be I can tell you we met at a dispensary. It was pretty incredible actually. He just hit me like a bus and I’ve never stopped loving him since the day I first saw him. He and I love each other so much. We’ve been best friends since the beginning. We rely on each other for everything. I probably rely on him more, to be honest with you. If I could have you, I don’t know where we would be living, but I would make your room so sweet and cute. I think I would paint the walls a soft yellow, because I wouldn’t want to know if you were a boy or girl until I met you. Maybe a soft green. I would get you all the best furniture. I would probably decorate it in no particular style. There’d be some animals, some flowers, probably some dogs, (I love dogs and I bet you would too). I would want it to be carpeted because then when you started crawling, it would be soft for you. I would get a rocking chair so I could rock you to sleep every night. I would whisper all my secrets to you because you wouldn’t remember them. I would sing to you. I would just stare at you in awe. I would play Taylor Swift for you because I bet you would love her as much as I do. I guess I already have played her for you, since she’s literally all I’ve listened to since I found out. She has a song called Daylight and I play it for you.
You would’ve had the coolest grandparents from my side and the worst from your dad’s side. Mine would have made up for his. I would protect you from them. I would protect you from everything, that’s why I can’t picture myself ending your short little life. I bet when you got older, you would be the coolest. Not because I’m the coolest, but because you’re you. I picture you as a baby, then a toddler, then I skip forward to when you’re like 20. I would love to know you when you were 20. I don’t know or care if you’d go to college or trade school or just be like me and build a career with a company you enjoy. I bet you’d be a hard worker, but you’d also like to party like me. I bet you’d have dark hair and I would hope you’d get his blue eyes and his smile. I always said I only wanted a boy, but if you were a girl, I’d be just as excited. If you were a boy, I’d probably make you the biggest mama’s boy. It would probably get you beat up in school. But you’d be tough as nails and you’d fight back. If you were a girl, I’d do my best to be your best friend like my mom is mine. I’d take you to get your nails done and I’d take you shopping for the cutest clothes. But if you weren’t into girly stuff like that, I’d take you wherever you wanted to go. No matter who you turned out to be, I would accept you. I would love you.
When you were little, I’d take you to every park around. I’d take you to my favorite which is called Chutes and Ladders. It has huge metal slides that burn your legs when it’s hot out, and big climbing walls. It’s such a fun place. I would take you to Edinborough which is where my dad took me and Taylor (that would be your uncle). It’s an indoor park which we would frequent often because we live in Minnesota and the weather is terrible. But it snows here so in the winter I would bundle you up and take you sledding. You would scream with delight and we would laugh and play in the snow. I think I’d love you more than anyone and anything. I know this actually, because I already do love you more than anyone and anything. I would tell you about my bipolar disorder and pray that you don’t inherit that from me. But if you did, I would be there for you every step of the way. I would take you to every doctor I needed to so you could be well. I would work extra hard at work to keep getting promoted so I can make more money to give you all the things you wanted. I would spoil you to no end. He wouldn’t agree with me on that, but ultimately, I would still spoil the crap out of you. I would never let you feel unwanted or unloved. I would always greet you with a smile and a hug. If you had the worst day ever, I would take you in my arms and promise you that everything will be okay. This too shall pass.
If you were bullied in school like me, I would go to the school and tell all the kids to get bent. I would meet you outside at lunch like my mom did for me so you wouldn’t have to sit with all the mean kids. Or maybe you’d be the most popular kid in school and I’d be more concerned about you doing drugs and partying. I wouldn’t fault you for those things though, because I promised myself when I was a teenager that if I ever had a kid, I would understand the stupid things they do when they’re young. It wouldn’t make me less upset, but I would do my best to understand your mistakes. As long as you weren’t hurting anyone or yourself, I could live with it. I would teach you to like coffee when you were old enough and I’d tell you how much better it is to drink it black, with no sugar, maaaaybe a splash of cream. I wouldn’t want you ordering giant frappucinos at Starbucks. They’re expensive and a waste of calories. I would teach you how to cook. Oh man would I ever teach you. Cooking is my favorite activity. It brings me so much peace and joy. When I cook something and he loves it, it makes me feel so good and accomplished. I would teach you that pretty much everyone on Earth sucks and to stick with just a few, kind people and your family. I wouldn’t teach you about religion until you asked about it. I would just pretend it doesn’t exist. Because it shouldn’t exist. It gives people a false hope that I wouldn’t want you to have. Not that I wouldn’t want you to be hopeful, just not for something that is just fantasy. I can see it now, you coming to me after school one day asking, “What is God?” I guess I don’t know how I’d answer it. I would probably tell you about how special dogs are or something. I’m spiritual, but not religious. I haven’t completely thrown out the idea of a “God” but I don’t know what it means. That would be probably one of the first of many tough questions I would need to answer for you.
Speaking of dogs, oh man would you love Henry and Bun. That almost makes me the most sad, that you won’t get to meet them and they won’t get to meet you. I imagine Henry would be a little nanny boy. He would never leave your side. See, Henry loves me more than anything in the world. I am the most important to him. So I know how gentle and sweet he would be to you. Now Bun on the other hand, is a total princess. I honestly don’t know how she would react. But knowing how sweet she is, she would do amazing with you. I wish so much that I could have you so you could meet them. It’s so important to me that I have them when I have a baby. They will always be my first babies and they will always be so important. I can just see us all together, playing or laying down and snuggling. I imagine bringing you home for the first time and setting your little seat on the floor and letting them explore and sniff you. They would look up at me with confusion on their sweet faces. Not a bad confusion, just like, “Mom what the hell is this thing?!” But wow would Henry ever be protective of you. He’s already been much gentler and sweeter with me and I imagine if I were to keep you, he would just get more protective as you grew.
Oh sweet baby how I’d love to watch you grow inside me. I’ve wanted to experience that for quite some time. I think it would be so incredible to feel you move and grow. My body would go to shit, but somehow that’s the least of my worries now. I would give up everything to have you. If I had the means, I WOULD have you, whether he was around or not. But you see baby, that I want you to have a father and a perfect life. I don’t want to bring you into a mess, which is what I would be doing. I don’t think he will ever be ready to have you. So maybe it won’t be him that I have something so wonderful with. If he can’t see you as the wonderful little being that you are, then he doesn’t deserve you. And since I am with him, I don’t deserve you either. I’m so sorry that I created you only to destroy you. I should have been more careful and considerate of you. This is not your fault at all. Sylvia Brown said you pick your parents before you’re born. I like to believe that. But I am so sorry that you chose me when I was not ready for you. I hope you can forgive me for this. I hope I can forgive myself and him for this, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. I will miss you when you are gone, I know that. It’s so nice having you with me. I feel so stupid because I want to do something for you. I feel you deserve a special send off. But my love, what kind of send off could I give that would be worthy of you? And how could I live with myself knowing I wanted you and couldn’t have you? You see my baby that this world is really tough, life is really tough. We can’t always get what we want in this life. Just because I want you, doesn’t mean I can have you. How would I ever give you the life you deserve if I don’t even have the life I want? I don’t know what I’m going to do for you, but it will be special and it will be ours. Just you and me, my darling. Please always know how sorry I am and how much I love you. I will always love you.
