Worth it
I was browsing through old photos of myself the other day, yellowing photographs of myself as a child. I was wondering what my son is going to look like, if he will resemble me or Andres or will be a perfect mixture of both of us. While looking through those photographs, I became a little sad. Or maybe I shouldn't say it was a 'sadness' than more a feeling of nostalgia, an aching for that part of me that has long since been dormant. I realized that I have changed so much since then, that I am no longer that carefree little girl with the braids in her hair. Everything has changed in only a year. I am married, at a new job, with some new and blossoming friendships, and now on the brink of motherhood. I change more and more each day, and in the process, lose a little bit of the old me, the one that I now only recognize in pictures. I don't know why this is so shocking to me. Every time I realize that these changes are taking place, it is only after I have already been through the process.
I long to meet him more and more each day; it is also an ache, to know that there is this little life inside of me but I can't touch him or hold him yet. I feel his movements all the time now, growing stronger each day. He has begun to kick me and it is the strangest thing I have ever felt. I know his patterns now, but have no idea who he is or who he might become in life. This fills me with so much hope, but also with fear. I worry about the world I am bringing him into. I see children every day at work who have been beaten, neglected, abused, have become addicted to the newest drug by the time they are ten-years-old, children who have taken the lives of their mother or father, their siblings, or sometimes after they have left us, their own life. How will I introduce him into this world? Because I know that in actuality, there is no way to shield him from it.
I begin to wonder what hopes my parents had for me. Often, I feel like a failure in their eyes but I wouldn't change any part of my life, nothing, even the things that I might at times regret. These instances and emotions have all shaped me into who I am today, and when it comes down to it, I may not be the happiest person, or as carefree as I once was (perhaps the only way to find those lost parts of myself is to maybe find it all in him one day). But, the moments of happiness that linger, the kisses and hugs from the wonderful man at my side, the friendship that I have always longed for and finally found, the undeniable love that I already feel coursing through my veins for my son...all of this makes everything - all the pain and sadness- worth it.
I long to meet him more and more each day; it is also an ache, to know that there is this little life inside of me but I can't touch him or hold him yet. I feel his movements all the time now, growing stronger each day. He has begun to kick me and it is the strangest thing I have ever felt. I know his patterns now, but have no idea who he is or who he might become in life. This fills me with so much hope, but also with fear. I worry about the world I am bringing him into. I see children every day at work who have been beaten, neglected, abused, have become addicted to the newest drug by the time they are ten-years-old, children who have taken the lives of their mother or father, their siblings, or sometimes after they have left us, their own life. How will I introduce him into this world? Because I know that in actuality, there is no way to shield him from it.
I begin to wonder what hopes my parents had for me. Often, I feel like a failure in their eyes but I wouldn't change any part of my life, nothing, even the things that I might at times regret. These instances and emotions have all shaped me into who I am today, and when it comes down to it, I may not be the happiest person, or as carefree as I once was (perhaps the only way to find those lost parts of myself is to maybe find it all in him one day). But, the moments of happiness that linger, the kisses and hugs from the wonderful man at my side, the friendship that I have always longed for and finally found, the undeniable love that I already feel coursing through my veins for my son...all of this makes everything - all the pain and sadness- worth it.