It has all been a bit
quiet around here because, well, I have been busy growing and
birthing a new human! It has been the most extraordinary time. So
extraordinary that I almost don't know where to begin in saying a
single thing about it that doesn't sound horribly cheesy, dangerously
honest (verging on a massive overshare!) or like a terrible cliché.
Becoming Mum has
changed everything and it has changed nothing. After Luke arrived I
realised that a part of me thought that I knew what I was doing in
life (I know, hilarious right?!) A part of me thought I had things
figured out, that I had experienced so much and that a baby was just
another thing that I would approach in much the same way (I can hear
all you parents laughing from here...!)
I had no idea that it
would be such a radically different experience. That it would
challenge so much of my character, my beliefs, the very foundation of
my world. I didn't realise that I would feel brand new things that I
had never felt before. I wasn't ready for the shock, for the
terrifying love, for feeling like a tornado was running through my
carefully organised world! How can you prepare for that?
And yet, though
changed, I find that I am still completely, fundamentally me. All
the challenges I face I do it with all the strengths and flaws I had
B.L. (Before Luke...my new measurement of all time!) I like the same
things, I want the same things, I am passionate about the same
things. I am not absorbed into a new world like I thought I might be. A new Mummy character was not bestowed upon me the day of his birth. I'm still
funny old me – energetic, passionate, impatient, sensitive and
prone to a grump. Now I just have a little person magnifying all I
am, reflecting it back at me like a scary truth telling mirror!
I
wondered if having a baby would involved me morphing into 'Mummy' and
I would suddenly be overcome with the urge to get a sensible haircut
and spend the evenings looking at OFSTED reports. But I am surprised
to find that as much as I am changed by having Luke in my life
already I am not defined by it. In the same way as I am not fully
defined by being a daughter or a wife or a Priest, even, I find, a
bit to my surprise, that I am not defined by being Mummy either. As much as I love being all of these things, I am
more than any of them.
But,
just as I suspected B.L., Luke is not defined by me being his Mum
either. He arrived on the scene so fully and brilliantly himself as
to leave me in no doubt of that! My job, I think, is to help him be
the best version of him that he can be, certainly not to define who he
ought to be. I want him to find
passions. To carve out a life that means something to him because
that is where I believe that there is real joy. My expectations,
whatever they are and wherever they have come from are very much a
side issue.
The
scary thing though is where is he going to learn this passion in life from if he doesn't see it here, at home? The
scariest thing about being a Mum so far has been realising that this
little one will only know what I show him. He will only know love if
I give it, he will only know kindness if I show it, he will only go
out there and give life all he has with confidence and energy if he
sees it here. So perhaps becoming Mum is really about becoming a
bigger, better me. And that makes me think that life has just got
very, very interesting indeed...!
