The healing properties of time.

Or maybe it's the staying power of strong emotion that is lacking. I don't know, and it doesn't seem to matter.

What I'm astounded by is the result. Incredible experiences, gut wrenching, throat closing, blood raising, that leave you curled up on the floor gasping for breath, become easier somehow. At times you may question the validity, or intensity, of the emotion when looking backwards over a great enough distance.

So in theory that's interesting, and even in experience it can be "interesting" with proper perspective.

This comes to mind for several reasons.

I have had a broken heart in my time, possibly more than once. Not the kind that I think I would be subject to if I ever lost little or big A, but decently powerful enough to impact my eating and sleeping habits for months. (Big A would contest this is related to broken pride rather than heart, as I never loved before her. She may be right. In many ways I know she is.)

Anyway, those hurt, and then after a while they didn't.

I have lost a sibling, my big brother, when I was 21 and he was 24. That is an empty like I cannot describe, pressing down for months and years. Waves, each different, as various areas of numbness woke up only to be barraged with what they had been avoiding.

It has been 6 years, and these days I can have large chunks of time go by that are not aware in the moment of this loss. The waves come when triggered, weddings, birthdays, working on cars, seeing other brothers working or playing together; when I am reminded of what I miss, but the missing does not impose itself on every moment.

That's a bit dire, I know, and I don't mean to bring you down with these types of stories. I share these here because I have had time to adjust to these events, so the healing, or fading, I have also had time to adjust to.

It is the most recent experience of this fading, and the accelerated nature of the forgetfulness, that has me in shock.

As you must know, the coming of little A in January of this year started for big A and me a time of sleep deprivation, and sapping of patience. Little A is a strong willed child, was from the moment she appeared, and she knew from hour 1 that she had been far more comfortable in her mama's belly, and saw no reason for trading her cozy pad for the loud, drafty world outside. She was not happy for 3 months. Not colicky, not sick, just generally pissed. It was miserable. Since then we've had about 2 months in the last 9 when we were able to sleep with only a single interruption through the night. For the last 2 months we've been in teething-ville, another unpleasant land of sad little eyes, wailing gums, and ear pulling discomfort. Then of course there's the newly discovered ability to stand up, and the unstoppable urge to do this even in her sleep.

These more recent developments are actually kinda fun, since their coolness is obvious even when we're dead tired.

However, the beginning of this adventure was not nice.

And yet, just the other day, I found myself telling someone it wasn't so bad.

I've lost my memory, or mind, in 6 months.

It might possibly be linked with finding out that big A and I are expecting a new one of these little packages in 7 months.