Before one becomes a parent, you hear all sorts of cliches - "you'll learn when you become a parent" or "you never know or appreciate how much your mother/father loves you until you become a mother/father yourself" or the newest "to be a mother is to let your heart walk around outside your body" or something like that. I am paraphrasing I know, the sentiment is more important than the actual words at the moment. These are harsh and to a certain extent true. Though, I honestly work hard not to utter them to friends without kids, especially the first.
But let me share with you the first lesson I learned upon becoming a mother. It is by far the harshest, saddest, most beautiful and most hopeful lesson I have ever learned.
For me, and I say for me because I truly believe that every new parent will come into parenthood already knowing different things, thereby making the lessons they learn different than the lessons their peers learn and different than the lessons they will learn with each child. This is part of the beauty of parenthood, every new experience, like snowflakes, are wildly and subtly unique.
For me, motherhood is an incredible gift. A gift that comes with incredible responsibility that I work hard to never underestimate, shirk or trivialize. I try to show my gratitude to my daughter, to my husband, to whatever higher power that may exist. I am truly grateful for the amazing gift of a child.
And part of the package is an incredible amount of love. Now, I have felt love. Of course the love of my own mother, which I do appreciate more now just how significant that love is, the love of my brothers, my friends and of course my husband. Specifically, my husband. This may sound a bit egotistical, and that's ok, ours is the love fairy tales are made of. Or at least, that is how it feels. I have jokingly said in the past that my husband and I share a functional and healthy co-dependence. HA! Seriously, ours is a true love. Like "The Princess Bride" kind of TRUE LOVE. Now I am not saying that our storybook love negates or undermines your storybook love. I hope there are millions of fairy tale love stories out there. Ours can co-exist and they should. I hope they do. And I am so very lucky to have this love, the kind of love that inspires love stories. Prior to parenthood, we were each other's world, lifting one another up, facing the world together - us against the world. It is of that true love that my daughter is made. The love is humbling. And in it lies the heartbreaking truth, the sadness and the beauty of my experience of motherhood.
I have been loved by a most amazing man. That love generated another whole Being. Right now, I am my daughter's world. I am who, what, how and when. Her nourishment, physically through nursing; mentally through singing the alphabet song and number song and counting and reading; emotionally through hugs, kisses, cuddles, nursing (again, its one powerful act). I can calm her, dress her, feed her, teach her faster, more completely and more easily than any other person on this planet. I am her world, she seeks me above all others, even daddy. And the heartbreak is knowing, I will love her more than she will ever love me. The sadness is knowing that one day she will go off to college and grow and learn outside of my influence. The beauty is I hope she finds a man (or woman) who will love her as her father loves me. I hope she too experiences the amazing gift of motherhood.
I've always considered myself a loving person. A little harsh, tough, and seemingly stoic, but loving all the same. I am awestruck at the sheer capacity for love my new mother's heart possesses. And I know someday that the big payout, the indication that I have been a good mother and done the job well is that my heart will be broken by the child who know holds my very breath.
You see, the hardest lesson for me was realizing that as I hold my precious baby girl in my arms, having carried her in my womb for 39 weeks, having nursed her til I chapped, nursed her to sleep, sacrificed my own comforts and sleep for her well being, cuddled her, taught her, sang to her, danced with her, loved her, and given myself to her - she is not mine. She is my daughter, she is of me, she was created by love, but she will never truly belong to me. As I never truly belonged to my mother. I belong to my daughter, and she belongs to her future - to her future children, to her future self, to her future spouse, but not to me, never to me.
For me, the hardest lesson is knowing that my most precious gift is not mine, she is only entrusted to me for a short time, to mold and protect, before her time comes to make her own discoveries. I love her more than she will ever love me. That is how it should be. For now, I will take every cuddle, every sloppy french kiss, every pinch and every giggle. I will hold these moments in my heart, knowing someday, it is these memories that will ease my broken heart as I let go and set free a love that was never quite requited. This is my hardest lesson. It is heartbreaking and beautiful. And I am so grateful for it all.
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