How life has changed since I became a mother

MO:

How has my life changed since I became a mother?

Well, how has it not changed?

Robin is 10 months next week and here follows a short summary:

* Yes. I have become less selfish. Suddenly somebody else is calling the shots.

* I appreciate private time more. Time being a mum. Time for training. Time alone with P and time together with my friends.

* I prioritize differently at work.

The things I do and say yes to, should bring me closer to my 5-year work goal. If it doesn´t, it will be fazed out, starting this autumn.

* I have more understanding and less understanding for other parents. More understanding: how it´s a puzzle most of the time to get things done. How not sleeping can get you to act all weird. How having a little one can be a very viable excuse not to be able to do things as spontaniously as before. Less understanding: how you can let your kids behave exactly as they want, where they want. I will never let that happen. If Robin starts screaming uncontrollably in a café or a shop, we will leave. Full stop. How having a kid is an excuse to stop training. Don´t get me started. There are enough gyms with kindergardens and most simple of all: running with the pram. Enough said.

* Earlier, when I was convinced I wouldn´t want any children, I looked everywhere for a role model: A normal, outgoing, well-spoken, succesful woman (or preferably several women) who lived without children by choice, and this is important! -not because they couldn´t have children /didn´t have a partner/ didn´t have the right partner/ were in a same sex relationship, etc etc.

I didn´t really find one. If you´re out there you need to come out of the woodworks.

Even when I was at my most adamant that I was not going to reproduce - ever - I still had this nagging feeling, "But I don´t want to turn out like the childless (by choice) women I´ve met, either..." What was it I reacted so strongly against in these women? It´s hard to nail it down to specifics, but generally, a feeling of immature selfishness - a Peter Pan syndrome, if you´d like. Something I could vaguely recognize in myself in certain situations. It revolted me and was definitely not something that I wanted to grow or nurture in my personality. Have I lost it now? I think so. Commitment doesn´t scare me anymore. In a sense, having the full responsibility for the life of another human being has made me grow up - and I like it.

* The LOVE. The unconditional love that you hear about, read about and you think:

"Ok, I´m ready so hit me with it"

And then, when it does, it´s like a cargo train, it´s like a hurricane, it´s like being swallowed by a black hole and spun around and around and around....and it scares you, inspires you, drives you, fills you up and just keeps growing, day by day, month after month, and I´m certain, year after year...

The love, the light, Mr. R.

22 April 2010

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