Grateful

They were giggling, shrieking, running around. The blue sky and big green willow made for a deceptively serene backdrop.

And then it hit me: I’m a mom.

I’ve been a mom for over five years, but as I sat there, newborn by my side, watching my five-year-old flee from my stick-wielding three-year-old, I thought back to the girl and woman I had been before this––motherhood––all began. And, for a few seconds, moments from throughout my life somehow seemed to coexist.

I sat in the back of the black BMW, an awkward chubby twelve-year-old, as our neighbour carpooled us home. “Mrs. S__, how does it work? How do you ever know if someone likes you? Like, like you enough to get married?” It didn’t seem possible that there could ever come a day when it wouldn’t be mortifying to be caught in a crush. It was even more mind boggling to imagine a boy liking me, let alone at the same time I liked him.

My sister held me as I sobbed on the kitchen floor, officially boyfriendless as I entered my senior year of high school. In my naivety I had believed we would get married. We had planned our future and named our imagined first child (he texted me after the breakup requesting I never use the name––I cannot for the life of me remember it). He was the first boy who had liked me…my first experience of mutual attraction. I found it difficult to believe it would happen again.

I was a college freshman, free from my small high school, and surrounded by oh-so-many boys. I broke the hearts of more than I’d like to admit, including one boy whose interactions spiralled me into severe depression. My first college summer was spent in intense counselling as I cried over a relationship that never was.

I was wracked with grief. It was partway through our sophomore year at Wheaton and Zach had told us he’d be leaving at the end of the semester. He was my best friend, the safest person on campus, the one who kept me sane in the midst of all the drama (mostly instigated by me). I wept in my room as I waited until midnight for him to return from work. I gave him a hug. The first real hug I had shared with him. It felt weird, and I blushed.

I was dating a young man. He was kind, and I thought it was going well, until the night he broke up with me. It was days before Valentine’s Day my junior year. He cited my friendship with Zach (who I was discreetly texting throughout the breakup) as one of his myriad reasons to end it: “I feel like a third wheel when Zach’s around.”

It was late spring of that year and I took Zach to a formal (he graciously stood in as my date as I was boyfriendless, once again). Zach said I was the most beautiful girl in the room. And then he asked me for dating advice. My heart sank as I waited beside him for his Chicago-bound train. He thought I was beautiful, and he loved me, but he saw me as a sister.

We sat on a bench my senior year, admiring the Fall colors. Zach told me he liked me as more than a sister or friend. My hands turned blue from the crisp November air and he rubbed them, his warm soft skin pleasant and unexpected after years of our platonic friendship. We took the leap from friends to more and knew we would marry. There was nowhere else it could go.

I sat in the bathroom at two in the morning, positive pregnancy test in hand. I woke up Zachary, my husband of two years, with little fanfare: “I’m pregnant.” We drove to the lake and watched the sun rise in an extravagant display of colors. We felt like children. We had no idea what it would mean to be parents.

Most days I still feel like a child.

I sat there in the grass, sleeping infant by my side. My two eldest, free from my breast, ran with glee. And I tried to grasp the scope and reality of what motherhood means. All of my life experiences: heartbreak, insecurity, friendships, miscarriages, have shaped me into the mother I am to them. Am I enough? I felt grounded, breeze in my hair, the warmth of my baby under my hand––content.

What a beautiful thing to have a life filled with so many twists and turns, laughter and tears, and to be sitting peacefully in such a vibrant place. My children scream, yes. I have to cajole them dozens of times a day. Sometimes I’m afraid one of them will cause the other serious harm. But they are a part of me, the best and the worst of me, my little mirrors running loose in the world.

And for the first time, I felt at peace. The three little lives that have come from my womb create chaos and stress, beauty and energy. Thinking back on years of striving and discontent, I realise I’ve given up always trying to control my life.

It was less than a year ago that I sat in yet another bathroom, sobbing, the word “pregnant” staring up at me for a fifth time. I sat there and saw my dreams die before my eyes and pictured my body changing irrevocably. I thought of the struggles I have with motherhood, the ways I am so easily overwhelmed.

But the added “complication” of this precious baby girl has brought clarity. My dreams do not have to die. They can grow. These next few years will not be a transition into simplicity. It will be filled with poop, tears, and sleeplessness. It will be filled with joy, adventure, and discovery as I watch and learn from these little extensions of me as they explore what it means to be alive in this very big world.

And I am grateful.