Four Years Ago

Four years ago today was the first snowfall of the winter.  It was only a dusting, but the temperature dropped about 25 degrees from the day before it and I didn't have a coat.

It was my first hospital stay.

People say that the pain of childbirth is difficult to endure but so easy to forget.  I can still vaguely remember it, the way I remember a dream.

Four years ago today the day started out feeling helpless, 20 hours into labor, feeling every minute of it.  7 hours later, something not-of-this-world took hold of me, and the pain felt purposeful; I felt my body evolve into something else.  And 2 hours after that I was holding this little slippery life in my arms and I felt empowered as I never had been before.

Four years ago I was naive and self-involved enough to think my life could go on the way it always had, just with a baby in tow.

I didn't know it then, but four years ago my life was never going to be the same.
I didn't know it then, but I would never want my life to be as it had been before.

There is something mournful and poetic about the transition into motherhood.  At least it seems that way to me.  It is the most beautiful redefinition of self.

Four years ago, I thought nine months was a really long time.

I wish I could hold my baby as she was four years ago, just one more time.  When she was bald-headed and tiny, before she was chatty and opinionated.  To feel that sense of awe of the air passing through her lips that had, only moments before, been enclosed in water. 

Four years ago, I never would have imagined this person my daughter has become:  this curly haired beauty, who can't carry a tune but has a natural athleticism; this empathetic child who feels things so deeply it's scary; this preschooler who can absolutely frustrate me; this unique individual who is so similar to me and completely separate from me.

Four years ago, I became a Mommy and I had no idea what that meant.

Happy birthday, Iris Mae.