It is difficult to sit in this limbo without becomes somehow caught in an undertow of disparate feelings - fear, anxiousness, impatience, excitement, awe... I am having difficulty putting my finger on my emotional state. Last night I tried to articulate how I was feeling, as two fat tears slid down my cheeks I still could not rightly identify how it is that I am right now. It’s all a mix of emotions, a kaleidoscope of feelings that make up the brilliant rainbow of these last few weeks before baby comes. I speak of limbo as that is where I feel I am right now, not yet a mother but still waiting in the wings, an understudy in my own future, my own life, waiting to be called to the stage. I feel afraid of the day and yet not, as I felt a great wash of calm the other day during all the flux of feelings and cramps and wondering if it had all begun. I suppose at least some of the emotion comes simply from a sense of disappointment that that wasn’t it, it wasn’t happening - it’s like when you want to get pregnant, how every time you think you might be you feel a flutter in your chest, a tiny sparrow of hope and fear and the odd mix of disappointment and relief when it does not happen. This is that same little play all over again. I feel ready and not ready, prepared and not. I feel sometimes like I understand inherently the magnitude of this experience and other times I want to weep at how mundane it really all is, how commonplace, how germane. I think part of it is not really being able to actually comprehend how much love will come flooding in with this child - how can you really understand that without having experienced it for yourself? You can understand it intellectually, but how can you know what it is to be a mother, to gaze into the eyes of your very own child and know that you will see it through from start to finish? I have never been particularly good at waiting, and certainly awaiting the most monumental shift of my life is no exception. I think of a million things, I wonder who I will be after this, how my life will change and mold around this new person, how I will adjust and change and sacrifice and be. I keep reading books in which the characters happen to have very difficult relationships with their parents and I think that it has tweezed out fears in my mind that can’t possibly manifest for fifteen years, and maybe won’t at all, but it’s funny that one of my biggest fears is that my child will grow up and not love me; that all this work and worry, the natural labour, the organic food, the hopes and fears and sacrifices will fall as dried petals around me and my child will grow up and never need me, won’t love me or even like me. I know it sounds silly to be thinking of this, but somehow, it is this looming fear I have, however much the distant and unpredictable future can loom. Perhaps it is really just the fear of not living up to the many expectations I set for myself in all aspects of my life, for certainly as much as there has been success, there have been also failings, many of which haunt me inordinately. Maybe it is just an extension of those feelings, pushing tendrils out where they don’t belong, weeds in my beautiful spring garden. I only want to be a great mother, who sets my child on a path of warmth and light and love towards the beautiful future that is its birthright. I cling to my hopes for everything, I send bright rays of sunshine and stars, of love and peace to this little child who will bring us light and ask it not to listen to mommy’s crazy thoughts and fears, to hear only the good things, to come into this world with a light heart and bright smile and all the love it can hold.
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