it's strange

sometimes things seem so easy. effortless. like life is just a river to float through. then you get to the rapids. the teething. the screaming baby. the throwing-of-food-at-a-restaurant. and you know what? it's not that bad either. tiring, sure. but it's really quite easy to deal with, without hitting the kid. and the laughter!! i don't even know where to start. she's amazing. the noises she makes, and the words and "words" she says. she has little conversations with herself, and walks around the house exploring the same things she's explored several times over. "it must be nice for life to be so simple." she's almost a year and a half. i'm almost 26. does life really need to be complicated? my closest friends have complicated lives, dealing with mental illness. me? i am a stay at home mom, with a lazy creative side. that's not so complicated. but we make it that way. or at least, i do. i look into the deeper meaning too much sometimes. over-analyze until it's at a microscopic level. it's just like when i compare myself to others. why do that to myself? i don't know what's going on in some other's head, i barely know the underlying psychology of my own head. i assume much of the time. i assumed that she knew she was still in love with him. i thought everyone knew, because it was so obvious to me. at times i need to be more blunt. i assume that she knows she's beautiful. you've seen those women on the television, or in magazine ads, so blindingly beautiful. you know how their life was, handed everything, complimented every day, having to beat back the courters. but i see her, beautiful, and complicated, awkward and graceful. and she truly doesn't know that she's beautiful. most don't. there's the beauty-in-all-of-us kind, but this is more. one person said she wasn't pretty, and that's what sticks. that's what sticks with us all. i've been thinking about that lately. i was compared to a woman that i find completely unattractive several years ago, and that's what i see when i look in the mirror. the similarities to her. so what? i did the same thing when everyone said i was going to be "built" like my dad. ie: fat. why couldn't i interpret it as i was going to be tall, or that i'd have powerful legs, or i'd burn in the sun easily? we jump to a conclusion, and stick with it, even if so-and-so says "nonononono, that's not what i meant at all!"... what are you good at? what do you have fun doing? are you beautiful too?