"...but the years are short."

I have quite a few friends who have recently had babies.

They are exhilarated by their newest loves. They are also exhausted. Some, I can tell, are wondering how they will make it through the long nights and the topsy-turvy days.

I remember the feeling, oh so well. Keenly, I can remember my eyes burning from sobbing and sleep-deprivation. I remember my body's soreness, my fuse's quickness. And that out-of-body, nerves all a-fire, slightly manic feeling of being mother to a new human being -- a feeling that dissipates at moments, but never seems to fully disappear.

Or so it seems.

The fact is, my friends, you will get back to a semblance of normal. Not the old one, but a new normal, and the you you used to be will slowly return. You will get through these upturned days and bleary-eyed nights.You will flourish actually. You're doing so much better than you think you are.

If you can remember to in the midst, drink it all in.

Because one day, before you have time to really register that it has happened, this:

...will have turned into this:

Right before your very eyes.

And you'll think back on those nights of holding your baby close, while you were all she needed.

And your eyes will burn again - a warm and bittersweet sting. Because it's true, what they all told you.

The days are long. But the years are so, so short.