I’ve never understood why we don’t celebrate the mothers on their child’s birthday.
We are constantly being reborn.
We are teaching ourselves something new and it’s our first time, just as it is our child’s.
Yesterday was spent celebrating our child, Maeve. This little being is the most special human I’ve ever met (yes, I know, every parents says this). But, she spreads joy everywhere she goes. Strangers can’t help but smile and talk to her.
It was bittersweet. I love watching her grow and become her own self, but damn it’s hard. Knowing that we will never be in this stage with her again hurts.
I haven’t been big on birthdays since I’ve been an adult. So much of the magic has faded and a lot of it feels like I’m just going through the motions.
Not with Maeve, though. Her birthday was full of magic, even though nothing remarkable happened.
Well, that’s not true.
I was able to enjoy her birthday for the first time.
I’m starting to enjoy motherhood and that’s life-changing for me.
It seems selfish to make a birthday post about my daughter and make it all about me.
But, I would be remiss if not to address the very fact that I was able to have a genuine and deep smile on her third birthday.
The last few months have been very different in my motherhood journey. I started taking medication that was able to get me out of fight-or-flight.
I write Maeve a letter on her birthday. I started this on her first birthday. By the time I “had” (I’m using this word purposely) to write her second birthday letter, I had so little to give. Yes, I loved her, but I didn’t love life at the time. I didn’t love being a mother. I didn’t love celebrating anything because it didn’t feel like a celebration. I didn’t understand how it was possible to be happy when my old self had died the day she was born.
Now, I see it. I see that I have been reborn many times over since the day Maeve entered this world.
There are so many versions of myself that it’s hard to figure out who I am in this exact moment.
And that’s okay.
I don’t need to be defined. I just get to be.
For the first time since she was born I just “am”.
This might seem light to others, but for me it was life or death. I was at a crossroads and I didn’t want to go either direction.
Yesterday I cried, but it was from the overwhelm of this new version of myself and who I get to be for my daughter.
She gets a mother who enjoys her life again. She gets a mother who wholly loves herself, no matter how imperfect. I’m working on loving myself the way that Maeve loves me.
Happy birthday to the child who allowed me to be reborn. Happy birthday to the one who gave me a new life and new breath.
You owe me nothing, yet you’ve given me everything.
