:)

I used to fancy myself quite articulate, but lately-- over the last 11 months or so -- I've found myself at a loss for words. I now use emoticons to express the deep, intangible feelings that render me a sappy mute. I just figured you all might like to know why my blog title is the timeless smiley face, rather than some actual statement...

Anyway, I truly do feel baffled at how the things I'm experiencing internally can't seem to manifest meaningfully into words.

I try to write about the way F's early morning smile, drowsy and crooked and stolen from her father, ties me in knots.

I try to capture the way her ceaseless enthusiasm for the Belly Button episode of Veggie Tales fills me to near explosion.

I work so hard to put it in words, how I fall to pieces when she leans in so carefully and places a coveted kiss on her daddy's cheek.

And I can't. It wrecks me, and I just can't do it. I'm a failure in this way. There is a gap between what I feel and what I'm capable of saying.

There are angels who have spent centuries practicing the lost languages of love and sorrow, of hope and despair, of loss and gain; I am only confident that they can roughly translate that which I cannot find the words to say.

All I am certain of is this: Sweet F, you animate these archaic words. You make them fresh as any living thing. You are luminescent, and I was unaware of darkness.