What nobody told me about becoming a mom

To my Charlie
5.16.16 2 months old today


What nobody told me about becoming a mom


That sometimes I'll be putting you to bed and be struck by a memory that makes me mourn my past life; like a craving for pad tai in Chelsea Market, where I spent my lunches during acting school. Then you'll laugh in your sleep and I'm instantly reminded that since knowing you, I've felt more love than any other time in my whole life. 

How aware of time I'd become. I feel I can reach right out and touch it these days. I see how temporary every single moment is. Time keeps going. Each new stage keeps passing. I am hyper-aware that nothing lasts forever. 

How I'd ache when you are in another's arms. How my heart would pound and anxiety would surge through me. Sweating, distracted, I'm a secret emotional wreck until you are given back to me. To all mothers who've so generously given me time with your own children through the years, who very well silently sat in agony while your baby was only across the room, I thank you. I love you. I honor you. I couldn't have known. 

How I would want to fall at the feet of all mothers now. You queens, you goddesses. This is what you have all gone through? This is what you were talking about? I'm humbled. I'm not worthy. 

The panic I'd feel when someone says they want to babysit you. All I hear is, they plan to take you away from me. I've had a lifetime of nights out, of living without you, I have no qualms about devoting myself to you through your infancy and beyond. 

How at home I'd finally feel in my own body. I feel every last inch fully inhabited by me at my most authentic. I am finally living in it fully, thanking every last bit of it with my whole being, so in awe that it gave me you. I've never felt more beautiful. I'm a new species. You made me, little boy. 

How much I would cry. Cry for things that haven't even happened yet. Like the time I started thinking of you growing up, going to school, leaving the house on your own. Not being a baby anymore. I laid on the floor snd sobbed. You weren't even two months yet.

How, like the universe, my love for you keeps expanding. How I see my late grandpa in your eyes, my late uncle in your nose and mouth when you smile. How you're a little bit of everyone we've lost come back to heal us. 

How each day would be bittersweet. Your growth would sneak up on me, yet seem so rapid. I am caught between mourning your beginning and excitement to see who you're becoming. 

That the day you took your first bottle instead of my breast would be incredibly difficult for me. I laid in the other room crying, hating that one of our feedings was being taken away from me. The one thing only I can give you. 

How excited I'd feel each morning to see you even though we've seen each other all through the night. There's something magic at the start of a new day. I awake to find it wasn't a dream after all, that you are real, we've got another day, we've got more time, and you really are mine to keep. 


xoxo, 

Momma