Today my daughter placed her head on my lap and went to sleep, something she hasn't done in a while and I realised that no matter what else life throws at me, I know love...real love for this little person. This little person that grew inside me and filled my life with love, joy, pain and sadness all at once, the kind of which I had never felt before.
I realised again, the same thing that I have known ever since those two blue lines appeared in that little window, that I was changed forever. That my daughter would be forever mine and yet never belong to me but only to herself. That I would literally die to save her life and that I would be forever done for, beholden to her beautiful smile and lost in her deep blue eyes. The same eyes that looked up at me the first time I held her.
Becoming a mother, a parent, is the most exhilaratingly terrifying experience I have ever known and trust me when I say I have known real fear, pain and joy in the 28 years previous to becoming Emily's mother. But the older I get, with every year that passes the more I realise what is important, what matters and what just doesn't. Because in the end everything falls away, till all we are left with are the things that matter the most to us. Whether that be people, possessions, money, status or whatever it is we value. Given enough time we can forgive most any sins committed against us, whether that be the heartbreak we feel when a lover doesn't love us back anymore, our parents failure to go the distance together or that 'bitch' that made our lives hell for 3 years because we fancied the guy she fancied and because...well she 'just could' (I'm still working on that one).
Anyway my point is that life changes us, getting older changes us and you can't fight it, you can try but it happens to us all and it doesn't have to be a bad thing. You can stop caring so much about what other people think, realise that it should only matter what you think and what those closest to you, the important ones, think. So take comfort in your life lived, in your family and friends because that's what I am learning to do. When I am at my lowest, darkest, when the sadness takes a complete hold of me, I look into those beautiful blue eyes and I know, that when everything else has fallen away, I did a good thing...no a GREAT thing!
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