BUT

I don't mean like your parents and stuff, but like — I work in after school care, and I'm forever meeting five and six year olds who seem like the most incredible people on earth. Kids who painstakingly explain the rules of handball, kids who ask me to help them colour in, kids who feel really deeply wounded by a classmate's behaviour, just an endless stream of them.

Or like my friends' kids who I've babysat once or twice. A kid who played with me in a creek, a kid whose mannerisms are etched in my mind. Cousins' babies who I held for a while. Even just stranger's babies in shops who stare at me the way babies do.

One of my best friends has an online friend who's recently had a baby, and he tells me - someone who doesn't know the friend's name even - about that baby having their first bath. Because that's the kind of love and excitement that little children inspire.

None of these children will remember me.

And then she slept in my arms, resting on my chest, for two or three hours.

It was at least an hour before I even thought about doing something else. Holding a sleeping baby, it turns out, can be a completely absorbing activity, even if you have ADHD. (Baby also enjoys the inherent leg-bouncing that comes with the ADHD.)

Now I can't stop thinking about how when that kid is five or six she's gonna run into me at Christmas lunch or some such event and - even if I see her on every holiday between now and then - I will basically be a stranger to her. But to me she will have the starring role in a memory I'm gonna treasure probably forever.

I can't stop thinking about all the aunts and uncles and family friends and second cousins once removed that I was routinely introduced to at Christmas lunches or weddings or funerals, who would say "You're so tall! Has it been that long? You probably don't remember me haha."

my arms, resting on my chest,

for two or three hours.

I'll be part of an art exhibition in Luneta Art Fair this coming Saturday-Sunday Feb 7-8!! The venue will be in the Noli Mi Tangere garden :] drop by to support me n my classmates if you can :D The theme and exhibit name is Sonder

buffy the vampire slayer ⇾ 2.17