I carry your heart

...here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

- e.e. cummings


Possibly e.e. cummings can shed some light on my extreme discomfort over the past weekend when my Lentil, the one who's heart I carry in my heart, became besotted with one of the 16 year old exchange students that we're hosting for a few months.

Just a little 5 year old crush, but it left me feeling redundant and hollow.

For a day or two I have not been the one he runs to when he needs his bumps and bruises kissed, or when he commentates on every little event that happens in his world. It gave me a chilling flash forward to his teenage future when I will need to stand back and allow him space to be his own person, allow him freedom to be adored by others.

After lunch after church yesterday, Lentil went to play football on the field with the exchange students and some other kids from the neighbourhood. On the way back the exchange student Lentil is besotted with was talking to someone else with great interest. Not having her attention was too much for Lentil and he went tearing down the road in a jealous rage. The other children chased after him, picked him up and carried him home. I rushed outside, hearing his loud sobs from down the road, assuming he'd injured himself. His body was unharmed but his little man's ego was sore. I could see splashes of the dark clouds over my own heart all over his face.

    Jealousy.
That awful feeling of not being the centre of the other's universe.
Big new emotions for us...

It was my great joy to be the one to console him, and the one who snuggled next to him while he settled down for an afternoon nap. As we lay there waiting for sleep, he so sweetly articulated his feelings of falling out of her attention, and with such bewilderment.
'When the other kids are not here I'm her favourite, Mom, and then suddenly I'm just not her favourite anymore.'