A year in retrospect.

So, it has been a year since my very first Mother's Day, where i was the one being celebrated, and here is what i have learned. Being Mom is hard. Terrifying even. The fate of a person's entire life rests on how well you accomplish this job. Who a person becomes, how they relate to people, that's on you (barring certain medical conditions of course). It is pressure, and it is ultimate responsibility, because if you fuck it up, this tiny person that you love from the very deepest pits of your soul, will be the one that suffers. This is the thing that consumes my mind most days. That i'm not doing it right.

I love my son in a way that leaves me speechless sometimes. The little boy in the next room, curled up, peacefully sleeping with his blanket, is, i firmly believe, what i was meant to do with my life. I am not a perfect Mother though. I lose my patience sometimes, i let him watch far too much TV, i can't drive, so we spend most of our time at home, unless Daddy is here. I love him, but i frequently feel like i fail him. Like our decision to have him when we did, did him a disservice because it robbed him of the social and emotional development that would have come with spending the first year and a half of his life surrounded by loving family, instead of just his Dad and I. It's just the three of us, and most of the time, it is really just the two of us, and the thing that keeps me up at night, is that i'm not sure it's enough.

I spend a lot of time scared now, scared for his future, for what may be.. So i guess what i have learned is that being Mom means no longer living for yourself. It means steeling yourself to the reality that what you are doing matters. Probably more than anything else. It matters because your actions aren't of localised consequence. If you're a terrible parent, you'll raise a broken person, and broken people tend to break others. So i have learned what kind of parent i plan to be. What i am willing to do, to give my son the life he deserves, and every advantage i can get him. I have learned that i willing to advocate, to stand my ground, and fight for him, more than i would ever fight for myself.
I have learned that to love a child is to put their needs so far above your own.

I have learned that there are things in this world that can truly, and in a way i never expected, break your heart into a million pieces, and because you're Mom, you paint on a smile, and you laugh, and play, and hug, and sing, through all of it, because that little boy needs his Mom to be there, to be strong, and resilient, so that he doesn't have to be. For him to thrive, he has to see me thrive, even if it is a partial facade.

I have learned what love is, what it means to me. What is worth dying for, and most importantly, what is worth living for.