​I cried for the first year of my life. I’m just now beginning to realize what that means. Babies mourn the loss of their mothers. They feel that separation and mourn. 

My screams were so loud, the next door neighbor would come over to make sure I wasn’t being murdered. 

That’s what she told me. That’s the story I was told, time and again, by my neighbor and by my mother who adopted me, about my first year on this earth. 

Now, I think of the pain that baby must have felt, the confusion, I must have felt. 

I wonder, if I’ll ever cry like that again. 

Sometimes,  it makes me sad that I can’t remember a lot of details from my childhood. Then I think of that first year and still feel a longing, but realize it’s no wonder my body aches. No wonder I’ve had the same knots on my shoulders and through my back for as long as I can remember.  

I think of that baby, of me, and wonder what, if anything, it would take to make me feel that way again. And I pray to whatever goddess watches over me, that it never comes.