Wisdom I needed today

And it came from my 2-week ago self!

As the holidays wrapped up and we tipped into the new year, I began to feel the inevitability of this change of life. Even more intensely has it taken hold these past few months.

After I crossed the threshold of trimester one of my only pregnancy, the baby more deeply rooted in my womb, a little more certainty that in 6 months I’d deliver him into the world and me into motherhood.

How swiftly these 18 years have passed.

Now, having turned the corner into spring, graduation barreling quickly towards us, I’m looking down at 5-6 months of this version of motherhood.

At 16 weeks, I felt the first flutters and pokes of baby feet or hands in my belly.

Here I am, 16 weeks into the last 9 months of having my son still at home, and I feel the first kicks and jabs of him wiggling even further away. It’s not mean, there’s no tension, we’re not tired of each other; it’s just a different level of separation that I feel energetically. We’re both preparing our psyches for this change.

I’m having more days feeling down, a little desolate, agitated, and wanting to “figure out what’s next”. But I know I can’t right now. It’s not time for me to fly and explore new territory yet either. It’s time for me to keep the nest warm and stocked with resources and nourishment of all kinds, to scan the horizon, my more experienced eyes knowing what to watch for in the distance, to welcome my baby bird back into safety and comfort when he returns from his practice runs.

It’s painful, but not because I don’t want it, just in the same way childbirth was painful. The excruciating process of delivering a human body out of another human body cannot happen without pain of some kind. The morning after my son was born, full body and mind reckoning shook my psyche, as I realized this motherhood project, at it’s core, was going to be about letting go over and over again.