Motherhood

Twelve weeks in and I'm not sure how to process what exactly happened in becoming a mom. As a writer, you anticipate the upheavals of life to begin writing, to express what you actually think about what just upheaved. I need the story to feel, and to feel gives birth to writing.

The story is that I birthed a baby.

And he's precious. Delicious.

Blurry eyed, I bump into his room at 2am and I scoop up that little swaddled thing all warm and smelling of the best stuff on earth. And he has this blonde fluffy nonsense growing in patches on the back of his head that will break your heart in a million pieces if you stare at it too long.

I have not forgotten about my old life. I loved my old life. That's why I cried hardest the first night home with my baby. The gestalt shift was settling in and I could feel my old self crumble. It's purely selfish, but that's what gives parenting its angst--- you're dying in all the right ways.

My life has become in many ways very small. Small baby, short must-do list, simple sentences, shrinking walls. Intellectually, you know this time of life will require you to slow down and lean into the simplicities. Only until you are in the thin of it does it take you by surprise.

I find myself needing more. I feel this way often.

After the fall of mankind, God told Eve that her primary glory (that of birthing and nurturing) would come at a considerably higher cost to her. But He knew that in these pursuits, and in all the ways they were now to fail her, she would become more desperate for Him. What was meant to enrich her, give her purpose and place in creation would come with limits. But she would test these limits and get lost in them.

There is much more to unpack about that but for now, I have to close. Baby bird is awake and I need a small, delicious fix.