How did you change?

Everyone talks about how motherhood changes you. I cannot believe how true it is. I was just talking to one of my best friends the other day, and she said that after meeting Olivia she realized how excited she is for the day she becomes a mother. And she also commented on knowing how completely altering parenthood must be. We are lucky as women to be able to truly feel what it is to create life. To see it grow, and twist, and become inside of you. Only a mother knows what it is to carry a child as a part of you for months, the heaviness of it in your bones and and in quiet thoughts. I really could not describe that part adequately, most likely no one can.

To the naked eye I am pretty much the same. I am still sarcastic, silly, and doubtful. My passions remain and I feel youthful. But now I go about my days differently. Every morning my day does not begin with me. The night falls and I am the last to go to sleep. Right now I exist to serve another, to cultivate another person. My biggest difference is that my center is no longer me. The middle of everything is now her and I am just hopefully and protectively pushing it along. Choices have many new considerations and ever decision is not so simple.

The second big difference is that I am softer in some parts and stronger in others. This statement is both figurative and literal. My determination is stronger, my purpose is stronger. My body is stronger and so is my backbone because I grew a human. My skin is softer and so is my spirit. I'm less cynical and more gentle because cynicism will age me. My heart is more tender because the sweetest part of the universe smiles at me when she wakes in the morning.