Shedding skin

Up at 5 a.m.

Newborn Beckam

The first time I've nursed in 24 hours.
My milk is drying up.
This is my intent, I think.
Beckam is 8 months old.
I am leaving for Lake Powell in 5 weeks.
I will be away for 8 days.
I didn't expect this to come so soon.
I've been counting down.  Powell in 6 months.  Beckam is 2 months and 12 pounds...3 months...15 pounds...Powell in 2 months...Beckam at 20 pounds.  
Now here it is.  Weaning time.  I'm not ready.

I will miss Beckam's little body snuggled into mine before the world wakes up.
Now one more degree of separation will happen, and he will become more of his own.
This makes me cry at my computer.
I probably look silly, unprovoked.
More time would not make it any less sad.
Besides, he is a big baby.  He weighs 22 pounds.
It looks like I'm nursing a toddler.  My body has outdone itself.
But I still feel like someone is dying, and I am begging Grace to leave them here for one more day.
As if one more day would make them stick to my bones like oatmeal.

Along with loosing my milk, I am loosing my last 10 baby pounds.
But, I would keep them.
After all this wishing they would go, I find they are not so bad.
My soft body was good.
Now I look at my breasts and they are just small, not better.
I thought I would feel more free without them, but I don't.
I thought if I were thinner, I would feel like my real self.
That's not true either.
I have been myself all this time.
I do not need to separate out thin Sarah from curvy Sarah and evaluate their worth.  There is only Sarah.
With each baby comes a cleansing, a shedding of old beliefs.
This time the one to go is:
"I am only my real self if I am a certain size.  If I am thin."
That is a big one.  Perhaps THE one.

These beliefs are only shed on the other side of experience.
I cannot think this skin off my body.  Just as a lizard, I go through the actual and very real experience of letting it become loose and then wiggling out.
I look back at it and know it will never fit again.