My Daughter Borrowed My Lip Balm and It Felt Like a Small New Chapter

Dear Delyara, She stood there in the hallway, already in her coat, asking casually if she could use it, and something about the ordinariness of the request made me emotional in a way I didn’t expect. Not because of the lip balm. Because of the age inside the moment. Older now. Watching me in new ways. Borrowing from me not as a baby, not as a little child, but as a girl becoming more aware of herself in the world. It was so ordinary and yet it held all this quiet movement inside it. I handed it over and said yes like it was nothing. Inside, I could feel time moving. I think that is one of the hidden ache-points of motherhood. The shifts are so small they often happen in a lip balm, a hair tie, a longer silence, a closed bedroom door. And still, they rearrange the heart.