My eyes see but I don't understand.
My body knows but I can't.
Is this the way we have come into the world?
My first words when Lena was born were:
"I don't understand"
Even now I don't even understand what I didn't understand fully. :) It maybe that I didn't understand the miracle of life/birth/pain breaking breathlessly and naked into pure innocent joy and rapture beyond myself.
If you ask my mother what phrase she had to remind me time and time again that I was repeating (incessantly), she would say, "I know". I said "I know" so much that it didn't carry much meaning.
I have realized more each year that "I don't know" and most of the time "I don't understand"
We can trust, believe, and be. And the best way to be secure is not in knowing or understanding but surrendering. How uncomfortable.
Tonight I have had 6 months time to be a mother (and one hour). In that time I have fallen into the world of motherhood; I say fallen because though some bit of me feels proud, most of me feels tumbled. It's like I've tumbled into this big secret land that I have dreamed of for some time and my eyes are still adjusting to the details, learning the language, and basically life (in mom land).
Literally my eyes have not adjusted. Today I realized that my headaches I have been having more frequently than ever tend to appear after reading/sewing/or something that uses my eyes more than not. Now 5 years ago I had corrective eye surgery and know what it's like to have lacking vision but after 5 years your body forgets. I had not thought of that possibility before. I thought it was my diet, maybe I was not getting enough to eat, that happened during pregnancy...pregnancy...that's a whole nother land, or more like the wobbily bridge between mom land and mainland (ha). But I digress, I found this article stating that breastfeeding women may have blurry vision etc. -wow- and yes, I'm breastfeeding. She hasn't even had a bottle.
Opinions: the best phrase I took away from our birthing class (that was my birthday gift) is:
"You are the best parents for your child"
This is not to say you're perfect, or that parents don't loose track, or that even the parents that don't make the best decisions are still the best.
What it means is that you have the instinct to make the right decisions for your child, and basically: not everyone is the same, people are different, and to the ultimate effect-do what you see is best for your baby.
So what I've had to focus and struggle with may come easier to other mothers, and what I see as easy may be super difficult for you/others. Expectations have the power to hurt, ie. marriage (which in the land of mom-seems quite an easy commitment, thankfully our husbands don't have to grow up so much as our children) ;)
Something I hear a lot:
"They grow up so fast": they actually grow just like everyone else did. I know what they are saying, it just gets old. I appreciate that my daughter is growing, I'm thankful. I want to see her walk, hear her voice, and so on and so forth. I would not want her to be a Peter Pan girl. I pray she does great things for the Kingdom.
