Ten Pounds of Contentment

My little Goblin, one week old

Chasing happiness. I can feel it, especially in the winter, the uneasiness increasing until I stir, anxious, searching for that thing that's fled, the happiness, the sensation of sitting in the sunshine listening to Nat King Cole, the settled serenity that flees if you look at it too hard.

The days grow short, the sun shines blearily for a moment before disappearing back into its cave. Days are blinks, nights, eternal. The searching becomes a pawing, clawing, scratching thing at the bottom of my mind.

Distractions. Sewing. Dancing. Getting OUT! But, when you split open to create another person, the pieces of you lie there for months, weak, feeble, incapable of motion.

This year, somehow, the motionless insanity became warm contentment as small limbs curved over my rib, head nestled against my shoulder, pounds growing heavier, sinking deeper into me until there was no space between my heart and the warm, soft-boned contentment. I hold it in my arms.