I might have Fight Song on repeat over here, both because I enjoy singing loudly in my car while people stare at me at stoplights and also because I really love some of the lyrics. Like the idea of how a single word can make a heart open.
And also that part where she sings about how “all those things I didn’t say were wrecking balls inside my brain.”
There were several pieces that I ended up cutting from my new book, mostly because I had a word count limit and went way over that. I know it is shocking to you to hear that I am so incredibly verbose. You are probably using your best Phoebe Buffay voice to be all “THAT IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION.”
I reworked one of the pieces a little bit and sent it in to The Huffington Post and yesterday they featured it, which I was not expecting and felt a bit vulnerable about. Then I listened to Fight Song again to you know, mentally prepare myself for online comments and also to motivate myself to clean my kitchen (because let’s be honest, it’s been awhile since I tackled the dishes) and sang loudly the line “Like a small boat on the ocean, setting big waves into motion.”
Which was very fitting.
(And not just because I titled my book Anchored.)
So here is my wrecking-balls-turned-small-boat y’all. I’m honored to share it with you.
Strands of hair fall to the floor against the snip snip snip sound of her scissors, and I watch as they float down, remembering when I wrapped a length of that hair around my fingers and yanked.
My daughter was 2 months old the first time I pulled my own hair out.
I think that most people mean that figuratively, but nothing was figurative for me. Everything was starkly literal, from the black and white monitor screens that told us every time her heart stopped beating to the way I took that hair-pulling expression to the extreme.
Read the rest of The Quiet Affliction of Prematurity here on The Huffington Post
