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27.6.16

Woman, Woman, Let Go of Me

Remember how one of my New Year resolutions this year was to finish that stinkin' "Don Quixote" book?  Good news!  I did it!  It was seriously the hardest book I have ever read.  I started it about a month before Sheriff was born and finished it just two months shy of her second birthday.

I was beginning to worry that it wasn't that the book was hard, but that I just sucked at reading.  So I quickly started another book to make sure it wasn't the latter.  The book I picked was "Peter Pan," and I finished it really quickly (which isn't saying that much, because it's pretty short) and remembered how enjoyable reading is.

Anyways, I wanted to share a part of the book that really hit home for me.  After Wendy and her brothers return from Neverland, Peter makes a deal with her mother that he can come and take Wendy back to Neverland once a year to do the spring cleaning.  Peter remembers and gets Wendy for a few years, but then forgets and doesn't show for a long, long time.  Which is where this part happens:

And then one night came the tragedy.  It was the spring of the year, and the story had been told for the night, and Jane was now asleep in her bed.  Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close to the fire, so as to see to darn, for there was no other light in the nursery; and while she sat darning she heard a crow.  Then the window blew open as of old, and Peter dropped in on the floor.


He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had all his first teeth.



He was a little boy, and she was grown up.  She huddled by the fire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.


"Hullo, Wendy," he said, not noticing any difference, for he was thinking chiefly of himself; and in the dim light her white dress might have been the nightgown in which he had seen her first.


"Hullo, Peter," she replied faintly, squeezing herself as small as possible.  Something inside her was crying "Woman, Woman, let go of me."



"Hullo, where is John?" he asked, suddenly missing the third bed.



"John is not here now," she gasped.



"Is Michael asleep?" he asked, with a careless glance at Jane.



"Yes," she answered; and now she felt that he was untrue to Jane as well as to Peter.



"That is not Michael," she said quickly, lest a judgment should fall on her.



Peter looked.  "Hullo, is it a new one?"



"Yes."



"Boy or girl?"



"Girl."



Now surely he would understand; but not a bit of it.



"Peter," she said, faltering, "are you expecting me to fly away with you?"



"Of course; that is why I have come."  He added a little sternly, "Have you forgotten that this is spring cleaning time?"



She knew it was useless to say that he had let many spring cleaning times pass.



"I can't come," she said apologetically, "I have forgotten how to fly."



"I'll soon teach you again."



"O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me."



She had risen; and now at last a fear assailed him.  "What is it?" he cried, shrinking.



"I will turn up the light," she said, "and then you can see for yourself."



For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid.  "Don't turn up the light," he cried.



She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy.  She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet eyed smiles.



Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw.  He gave a cry of pain; and when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew back sharply.



"What is it?" he cried again.



She had to tell him.



"I am old, Peter.  I am ever so much more than twenty.  I grew up long ago."



"You promised not to!"



"I couldn't help it.  I am a married woman, Peter."



"No, you're not."



"Yes, and the little girl in the bed is my baby."



"No, she's not."



But he supposed she was; and he took a step towards the sleeping child with his dagger upraised.  Of course he did not strike.  He sat down on the floor instead and sobbed; and Wendy did not know how to comfort him, though she could have done it so easily once.  She was only a woman now, and she ran out of the room to try to think.


I FEEL THIS.  Every day.  I hear the voice inside me crying, "Woman, Woman, let go of me."  I hate admitting it, but I've forgotten how to fly too.  And there are most certainly days when I smile at it all, but they are wet eyed smiles.  For heaven's sakes, I even have not one, but two little girls in their beds right now.  I am only a woman now.