What happened?

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.  ~William Shakespeare

My little sister wrote a note about me on Facebook today. She's 18. She wrote about how much she admired me, how much she used to (and still does) want to be like me....

i remember sneaking in to your room when you were out of the house back when i used to visit you and Daddy over the holidays. I thought you were the coolest, most creative person on the face of the planet! The glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, the handwritten poems on the wall, all the old bottles you kept as candle holders. Your room became the best room in the house for me: not only was it filled with the most fascinating things, but also because i hoped that the longer i sat at your desk, the more i read your poems, the longer i listened to your Lauryn Hill cd, the more i would become like you. To me the ultimate compliment was "You have the same laugh as your sister" As soon as i had a steady hand i would paint my nails dark blue with white spots, the way i had seen you do. I started collecting teddy bears because of the three that stayed on your bed well into your varsity years. I still want to be just like you when im older. My awe over you has not faded through the years. Beauty, kindness, creativity. Forever the coolest big sister.

I was transported. Instantly. To a time that now seems so long ago. To a me that now seems so far away. But I was also forced to ask some questions (as I so often do), "Was it all really so long ago and far away?" "What's really changed?". I'm still me... right? Apart from the job, the bills, the kid, the husband... I'm still me. Or am I? Should I be? Never I was more confident, never happier, never more sure of anything than I was back then. That can only be good. Right?

It's the perennial paradox of my 'adult' life... being the same, while being so different. How does that happen? What switch did I flip? WTF happened?? Why shouldn't I still have poems on my wall, and glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling? Why shouldn't I still be the same big sister that sparked a little girl's imagination and filled her with the possibilities of all that can be - with a little faith in yourself and a little strength of your convictions?

I'm older. I know more. And yet, never have I felt smaller and less sure.

Back then, I wasn't afraid to be wrong. I wasn't afraid to live... because life was all I had. The raw experience of it; the heady intoxication of it. Alive and in the moment was the only way to be.

Fuck fear! Fuck propriety! Fuck me... I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing!

When 'what if' is

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

The truth is, Little Tyke was not planned. Motherhood for me has been a tough road - very rewarding, but tough all the same. There were times that I even dared to wonder what my life would have been like if he wasn't around.

For the longest time after he was born, I felt completely and totally overwhelmed and a little oppressed. I felt as if my life had been taken away. Hubby and I had only been together as a couple for two years when he was born. It sounds like long enough but, we got married when I was three months pregnant - which means that, at a time when most people are only just 'coming down' from the euphoria of their honeymoon, I was a bloated, swollen-feet-having, back-pain-suffering grinch.

And then after he was born, my milk just wouldn't come in. In-between the cracked nipples and guilt over not being able to perform the most basic of motherly duties - I had to go on antibiotics because my ceasar wound became infected. I got thrush (and passed it on to Little Tyke) and so had to stop breastfeeding: after that cleared up, he refused to take the breast anymore. Then there were the endless months of colic...! Oh god, the colic. That almost broke me.

At the same time, I was trying so hard to run the new home that I had created with my new husband. But I was just so tired all the time. I still wanted to be the desirable (and agile) little nymph that I had been while we were dating. But I just couldn't lose that baby weight and I seemed to gain even more as the months wore on. I missed the nights out that we used to have - the partying and the romantic dinners. But we had noone to watch Little Tyke while we were out.

I felt like a shadow of my former self and it was at those times that I would ask myself what life would be like without him. I would never admit that to anyone and even when the thought reared its ugly head in my own mind, I would quickly shove it back down and chastise myself for hours. It wasn't natural to think that way and I was an apalling mother for even entertaining such a thought - in any form. But the fact was my life had changed irrevocably and I felt that it hadn't really been by choice, so inevitably when the hard moments came so did those ugly thoughts.

Fast forward to today. Little Tyke has been in Z for over a month now and I'm finally faced with the reality of my once fanciful (albeit shameful) 'what if's. The truthful answer is that life would be hollow. There would be no daily reminder of my alive-ness. Nothing to keep me connected to life itself.

Being a parent gives you a VIP pass to life's backstage. You literally witness and experience its very beginning. The moment that you realise that this brand new little person is about to embark on a journey that you have already travelled and have taken for granted all your life, a sense of purpose immediately starts searching for expression within you.

Suddenly the ills of the world, the ills within yourself become a permanent part of your peripheral vision. You are consciously, subconsciously and sometimes unconsciously aware of the fact that you are responsible for guiding this little life through all the perils that you have faced and (more terrifying) the perils that are yet to come and that you know nothing about.

You find new joy in the seemingly mundane things that now cause the face of your child to light up ... coming home, giving hugs, taking a drive, eating ice-lollies. You suddenly realise that you have a reason to smile every single day. And for me, that is the one that blows my mind. A reason to smile every single day? Even when you don't particularly feel like you have anything to smile about, all it takes is a funny word or a wierd laugh from your little one and suddenly a smile will creep up on you, simultaneously warming your heart as it spreads across your face.

There are facets and dimensions of life that become clear to you when you have a child. You begin to live outside of yourself and, if you're like me, it is for the very first time in your life. I've said before that I reckon I'm pretty selfish, but when Little Tyke needed to eat or had to have a nappy change it was him that came first - every time and without even a second thought. It may seem elementary but it's really not. It's a truly remarkable feat of nature; to give and give and give without an expectation of even an iota of reciprocation.

He became my joy, my purpose, my reason, my life.

And now, I miss him unendurably. Every phone call is guaranteed to end in tears (my tears). I miss hearing him say "Mummy". I am even willing to hear it called out repeatedly for up to 10minutes at a time (like he loves to do) if it means I'll have my baby back with me.

What is life like without him? It's really not life at all - not my life anyway. As much as I had wanted to look at this time apart as an opportunity to catch up on all sorts of stuff - including catching up with a me a thought I had lost, I realise now that a life without my son is impossible. This is my life now and how much more rich and fulfilling a life it is. I have gained more from being a mother than anything I could ever have thought I had lost.

Maybe I needed this time to really think about it and even this blog to try and put it into words. In a way, I'm kind of glad I did.

So... can I get my baby back now?

Easy...? Who said it would be easy? (Pt III)

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand. ~Emily Kimbrough

So now, after everything and having re-read pt 1 and pt 2 again, I realise that I'm facing the next hurdle in my journey. I have to now learn to draw the line between doing me and doing others wrong.

Things with Hubby are, well... interesting. Although the whole thing hasn't exactly been resolved, we have spoken a bit and I think he's opened up as much as he's going to on the matter. Now, it's time for me to decide my reaction. I'm tempted to be on some, "F*ck it!", but that's not me. I love him and value our marriage way too much. Plus, I realise that we both have our frustrations and we both have things that we're trying to do and to achieve.

I actually feel really tired. The tension has taken a lot out of me, and I want it to be over with already. I need to decide what I want my life to look like and what I've got to do, what I'm prepared to do, to make it so. One thing I know for sure is that I want a life with Hubby in it and I want it to be a happy one... for both of us. I think I know what he needs from me and I guess I need to decide whether I'm ready to make the trade-off, because that's what it will require - some give and take. And as much as I hate to admit it, I've been taking much more than I've given recently.

I suppose I thought that by reclaiming me - sometimes at all costs - I was empowering myself. But which is the me that I was trying to reclaim? In fact, the answer lies in that very word... REclaim, take BACK. I've been trying to hold on to an unmarried, unobligated me, but the (sad) reality of it is things done changed, and they've changed for good! There's no going back, all that's left to do is to move forward.

The disappointment is undeniable. I feel somewhat like I've failed. I thought I had it right! In a way, I think I did. My intentions were honourable, but I just didn't DO it right. And that's my first big lesson on this path... no one is an island and while you must always do it FOR yourself, you can't do it BY yourself. I wanted so bad to be right, and for him to be the immature, over-reacting one. But there is no right and no wrong - there's just us. And in the immortal words of Dr Phil, I need to decide: "Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?".

Sigh*

It's good though. It's always good when you learn something, so that's what I'm choosing to take away from this... a lesson in life.

It sure 'nuff ain't easy.