I woke up this morning in a beautiful young body and mind called Rachel.

I stretched her arms and rubbed her eyes and listened as her thoughts flitted by about all the this’s and that’s, the goings on of her life.

She worries about small things and feels surges of emotions, sometimes at the slightest passing mirages she sees with her lively imagination.

Sometimes she notices me –

and in the intimacy of this space of seeing, knowing, feeling, it’s as if we lock eyes and knowledge passes between us.  I comfort her –

today she may feel lonely, or ashamed; tomorrow she may feel happy and yet afraid that happy times may slip away as quickly as the sad, and that joy can’t be held in her hand, indeed, nothing can.

She worries briefly about the beauty of self she’s experiencing and how someday that will go away, or change.

In this sacred space of being, I take her hand and hold it to my lips as compassion and love spread from her heart to her veins to her fingertips and toes and I watch it happen and feel proud of this human for her bravery in the face of change.

I send love to her pain when it flares up and sit back for her to find me when she’s lost.

I watch, as she grows up.

………………..

Happy 30th birthday to my human called Rachel.

Poetry by Rachel
rayintheworld.com
instagram.com/arayintheworld

Photography by Addison
Addisonbryantart.mypixieset.com
instagram.com/addison_bry