Familiarity
I look at the low-pixel reflection, my grimace mirroring that as myself as the two day old infant on the screen.
I hear my mother's coo- live beside me as she watches herself clutching me after exhausting hours of parenting, and her now, exhausted from... well, parenting.
Twenty-two years old. I feel my face quirk into a grin as I see my brothers emerge on the screen, and lean back on my hands. Four and seven at the time, them. I quip about how the latter's ears are large enough to hear colour, and wince much like my infant-self when the four year old presses too hard on my soft spot that it makes me cry.
I bite back my affection as the elder of the two goes into an all too familiar tirade about the other's idiocy. Nod understandingly at my infant-self's blank look as I cease my sobs to watch the strange display before me...
and like clockwork, there's a ring of the phone. I look to my mother- enttranced and munching at popcorn like she hadn't been there for all those harrowing years, and push myself up to grab the landline. Its my grandma, and I don't hesitate to beam at her familiar excitement when she hears its me rather then my mom. Her lilt, childish and bright no matter my age.
I answer her twenty questions from memory- yes, I ate, yes, my moms at home, yes she watered the garden...
... and I remember the last family video I watched, where she tended to a field of unruly grandchildren and friends all whilst feeding us and changing my diaper before anyone else could.
And for once, her questions register as not pestering, but a lifetime of love.
I remember I'm still that little girl, confused and curious. My heart bleeds with familiarity, and the baby inside of me beams.