Re-Learning Gentleness

Hand-written. Crosspost with FoD

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The other day I was hanging out with Baby Q and I pulled open a kitchen drawer for them. I accidentally overexerted and the glass containers inside lammed against one another with a very loud result. Baby Q looked at me in surprise, I looked at them with a shameful grimace and said, "Sorry. I'm re-learning gentleness."

This has been the case for me since about... three months on T, wen it really started to kick in and cause a sharp increase in my muscle density and strength. For about six week, I was a walking wreck--swinging my arms and knocking things over, leaning against things and knocking things over, tossing things too hard and knocking things over. It was pretty bad.

Starting T is a second puberty--relearning the way my body's strength and coordination work, individually and together. For a short while, I actually refrained from too much physical contact, for fear that a gentle squeeze would actually be a vice grip. But that didn't last long.  I work with kids and they demand constant physical contact . And it was babies who helped me re-learn gentleness and helped me undeerstand this new strength and how to control it.

For the past month I've been going to the gym and it's like Round Two of re-learning gentleness. More than a few times I've tossed Baby Q a little too high when we're playing. Luckily they don't mind, but that's not to say it doesn't matter.

My work requires that I am gentle--not just in manner and spirit, but also with touch. I think it's rather ironic that as I'm teaching a toddler how to use "gentle hands," they are helping me re-learn the same thing.