It's so nice to be back to the blogging world! After a maternity leave followed by a technical hiatus, I've been without a blog for awhile. But I'm back and ready to start again.
And, though the blog will be primaily arts-focused, it's also likely to wander into other territory - not the least of which is the world of parenting.
The following post was inspired by an online discussion I got involved in not long ago with a group of mothers whose little ones, like mine, had recently turned a year old.
The central question: If we'd known then what we know now, what would we tell ourselves?
I thought of plenty of things - don't worry, breastfeeding gets easier; yes, she'll learn to nap, give it time; don't fret if she hates tummy time, she'll get over it … and on and on.
But aside from the mundane and the practical, I also found myself musing on the emotional journey involved in becoming a mother - and I decided to write the "old me" a letter to tell myself about it.
I hope this will resonate with other new mamas out there who are facing the most profound change of their lives.
Enjoy.
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Dear New Mama,
You are beautiful.
Yes, you. You with the unwashed hair, the baggy milk-stained PJs, the dark under-eye circles that no amount of concealer could hide even if you could find three spare minutes to apply it. You with the battered body that now seems to be leaking from every imaginable location (and a few unimaginable ones too).
You have no idea how beautiful you are.
This life you have been catapulted into has discombobulated you. You haven't slept, you've barely eaten. You never knew that a being so tiny could consume so much of your time and energy.
It's more than the fact you haven't managed to string together more than two straight hours of sleep since that tiny being entered your life. More than the fact that peanut butter sandwiches have become your idea of a balanced breakfast, lunch and supper.
It's more than your time that has been consumed by those six-and-a-half pounds of new life.
It's you.
You've lost yourself, haven't you? You're wondering what happened. Where you went. Whether you'll ever be able to find yourself again. If you'll ever emerge from this strange, hazy, disjointed state of existence that's become your life yet most days doesn't feel like a life at all.
You're lost. You're confused. You're terrified. You don't say that out loud, not much, because you fear it may make you seem weak. Or foolish. Or that somehow being scared makes you less - less of a mother than the tiny fragile being you're holding deserves, less of a person than you used to be.
Here's a secret, new mama. That confusion, that loss, that fear; it doesn't make you less. It makes you more. You are more mother, more woman, more person than you ever knew you were capable of.
Look at yourself in the mirror and see. Really see. Past the unwashed hair and the dark under-eye circles and the stained pyjamas.
See who looks back at you from those eyes. The woman who created a life. Who carried for those thirty-eight weeks and five days the flesh and blood of another whole person. Who bears the oozing breasts and the abdominal scar and the sagging belly to prove it.
See the woman who, with breast and comforting touch, can fulfill one tiny being's every need. Who will hold that tiny being every time she cries, who will be there every time she is hungry or scared or cold or lonely. See the centre of that tiny person's universe.
Who is this woman, you wonder. This woman who is capable of such strength. Such patience. Such gentleness. Such love.
You weren't expecting that, were you?
You never knew it was possible to feel so much, to hurt so much, to love so much. A love so unexpected, so all-encompassing, so overwhelming that it makes you ache in places deep inside you never knew you had. A love that makes you want to weep for the beauty of it, for the tenderness of it, for the realization that you are forever bound to this new creature whom you - yes you, you beautiful dilapidated wreck of a woman - brought into being.
You are amazing.
So smile, Mama. Smile at that reflection in the mirror and know that what you have done, what you are doing, is a journey that will fill your heart, your soul, your entire being in a way that nothing ever has.
This hazy half-existence you feel imprisoned in right now? It will pass. Too slowly, at first, and then, suddenly, all too quickly. Too soon you will be watching that tiny being turn into a little person before your very eyes. You will watch her roll over. Sit. Crawl. Stand. Toddle away from you on her own sturdy little legs.
You will smile at her. You will laugh with her. You will just about burst open with pride as she achieves each new little milestone that's setting her on the path to an independent existence. Always, always, you will ache somewhere deep inside with love for that little person of yours.
And you? That you whom you lost somewhere, whom you wondered if you would ever find again?
She will be back.
No, she will never be the same. She will be changed forever. But it's a change you will embrace. You will embrace her passion. Her strength. Her patience. Her gentleness. Her wisdom. Her joy.
Most of all, you will embrace her beauty.
Not because she is washing her hair again and getting an occasional night of actual sleep. Not because she has lost some baby weight and traded in her stained PJs for mostly clean clothes.
No.
That's not where her beauty comes from.
Her beauty comes from everything about the new life that she has been catapulted into. Everything about the new tiny being she created and the new title she has earned with every sleepless night and missed meal. Everything about the new person she has become.
She is Mama. She is beautiful. She is you.
With love from,
Yourself In Fourteen Months
