you're alive. happy birthday.

Dear Daughter,
Happy Birthday.

I do not know who you are or what you have become. I don't know how old you are. Today, you do not exist. In fact, perhaps I should have said "Dear Son." Though, I have a sense that regardless of your existence status, you are a daughter. If I am ever destined to be a mother, I feel as though it will be to a daughter. Whoever you are, I am sure I love you.

Tonight I found myself down by the lake at sunset, eating pretzels alone in the sand. I talked with your grandfather because it was his second non-consecutive set of fifteen years of marriage to his second wife who is not my mother. Love is complicated and I have just wrapped up my first marriage, only three years deep. Relatively unscathed. Sure, I have told you about him by now.

I walked home with my groceries and pretzles and nearly lost my sauce in a wicked splatter on the sidewalk. Tomato sauce and wine were both fine. I live in a small town. Please take a kitchen knife to my right eye if you were A. Born in this town or B. I am still living here or C. Have a go at my left eye as well if both A & B are true.

I am positive that you are beautiful. I have popped plan B's like PEZ. I have laughed in the face of the idea of you. I have prayed that God would assign you to another mother. So, I suspect that if you've made it here, I was desperate for you. If you are reading this, I am happy that I did not miss out on you. I also hope that I don't have stretch marks. Maybe you're from Malawi or Guatemala. Maybe you are a son.

Where ever you came from, you're the song on my lips. The stripes on my Adidas. The missing rhyme in my sonnet.