The Mothermorphosis

“Come at me baby, I can take you. Give me everything you’ve got”.
My daughter was five months old when these words left my lips.
The moment they escaped, I felt sick.

I knew I couldn’t handle all the parts of her.
She was a firecracker.
All her feelings, all her boundary pushing, her power and glory... they were too much for the woman who spoke them and I knew it.

I was scared.
The anxiety rose.
It would take a huge, ongoing up-levelling, to be with a child so strong-willed.

A year and a half later, she still rattles me.
She pushes me every day.
She exposes my vulnerability, my anger, my fear, and she most likely will forever.

Last night she told me she cried because I was working.
She wanted to see me, but I was busy.

She wasn’t asking for an apology.
She was asking me to rise.

To enforce loving limits on the work I do.
To prioritise the things I consider my priority in theory, but not always in practice.
To be piercingly present.

I held her, and our hearts healed stronger.
We roughhoused and wrestled and rocked until 11pm when she could settle down to sleep.

There is no guilt here.
We are already perfect, as we are.
This is her next calling, asking me to grow with her.
To be bigger, not to pull back or minimise.

So we breathe this next edge open.
We thank where we have been and step into the unknown.
And we expand, together.

This is the becoming of a mother.
This is the mothermorphosis.

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