So how do I feel today?
What should I feel on the day that follows that moment when everything changes all that has come before? When you stand frozen, stock still in time; caught between the past, the present and the future?
Yes. My daughter is pregnant. Just hearing those words silently swirl around my muddled mind as I watch as my fingers lightly touch these keys. Yes. She is pregnant. She has a partner. They may not be living together but they are in a relationship. And there is intent and intentions.
My pregnant daughter. Excited, effusive, nervous and emotional. She is nineteen years old but is so very, very young. She is still navigating her way through an emotional roller-coaster and her own inner turmoil. And that is before the glimmer of a baby bean. A seed.
She is catapulted full pelt now; staring towards her future as a mother. And right now she is a mother to be. My child.
So how do I feel today?
SAD
There, I have said it out loud.
SAD.
A heart that hangs that bit heavier inside me.
Full of the burdens that are bestowed upon me as a parent.
This occasion should be spectacular; brimming with the shiny excitement of the bubbling unknown. The precious gift of new life. But I am not there yet.
There are no bubbles.
Just flatness.
And I feel sad
that I don't feel joy.
ALONE
There is no one I know here who can really relate to where I am.
Right now.
Un-anchored from my core as a parent.
I feel alone.
I also know that my daughter will be feeling alone somehow.
It doesn't matter that I am here for her. I am.
She will feel that gentle tugging on all that she knows as those fraying threads
of normality
snap
one
by
one.
I don't want her to ever experience how I felt as I gingerly journeyed into motherhood.
Without my own mother.
She was alive.
She was present somewhere nearby.
But I was alone.
And every day that my growing daughter's presence pulsed within my body I could no longer relate to a mother that would reject their own child.
But I am not my mother.
I will never be her.
I am me.
And, in turn, my daughter is not me.
We have shared a bond that has withstood so much.
Is it unbreakable?
Time will tell.
This is her time now.
But I am still alone.
EMPTY
My daughter has now gone.
She will never ever be the same child again.
No matter what happens next.
I have lost someone who has been a part of me for so long.
Gone.
And I feel empty too because I believe that I have given her my all.
All that I can.
All that I ever could.
And in the wake of a broken marriage, I have carried her tirelessly.
But I am feeling depleted.
Dejected.
But this is me.
I have been deeper and darker.
I will come back
AND
I won't feel emptiness for long.
I will rise up again and
I will continue to give.
Give to my child,
to my grandchild.
AND
to myself.
ANGER
Finally.
I have found myself.
My truth.
My core.
I have reached the time for me.
To experience,
To live,
To breathe,
To laugh,
To love.
To keep my chest up and face the future.
No matter what comes next.
I have sacrificed so much for so long
Finally.
I am free.
Free
to feel
to breathe
to live
to laugh
and to
love.
And I don't want to be pulled back.
I don't want to be held back.
I want to forge forward.
Surging with renewed passions and vitality.
To skip barefoot in the sand
and to dance in the rain.
To sit in the warm pool of sunlight
That surrounds me.
EXCITED
My child is carrying her own.
A little life is in its fluttering infancy.
Unfurling and latching on.
Holding tight.
And when this seeps into my thoughts,
spreading like warm ink across a blotting pad,
I catch my breath.
It is a miracle.
A mother to be.
It is astounding
Astonishing
Overwhelming.
Like the anticipation of a momentous wave, my stomach lurches.
I am caught up and carried higher and higher.
Until finally, as I fight to stay at the top of this thought,
the bottom of my rational world falls out
and everything drains away.
And with one last
crash
every conceivable
emotion
washes
over me
I remain afloat.
Inflated.
Buoyant.
This is how I feel. Right here. Right now. Right in the moment....
