As we all know, I was (surprisingly) among the last of my friends to have a child. As much as I always wanted a baby, there were times when I watched my mom friends have to leave the party early or wake up at some ungodly hour after not having left the party early enough, when I thought to myself, sheesh, what a drag...
And as much as I always wanted a baby I worried that I might not have the stamina for parenthood. I like and need my sleep! At least I used to. Need it I mean. I still like it but have come to realize that I can go for long, long stretches without enough of it...
And as much as I always wanted a baby, I secretly wondered about how selfless I would possibly be. I wondered if I would be able to maintain mommyness when other, maybe more fun stuff came along...
And now I understand something that I guess can only be understood by experience. The love and the overriding instinct to nurture and fulfillment from nurturing is constant. Mamma isn't something that you turn on or off or that comes and goes with mood or whim. It is just the steady baseline of existence when you've got a child, and there's nothing more important than the well being of that little person.
I'm so relieved that it's so easy to be constant. That it's like breathing to keep the baby safe and happy. I'm so relieved that I'm never at odds with what I want and what's required of me. Even when I'm the most exhausted tired I've ever known.
I do long for time sometimes. For art.
But then I think about the fact that this time is fleeting and that some day in the future, a future that gets closer by the second, I will have plenty of time and that I'll miss the amount of care and attention Natanya needs from me. I'll celebrate her independence but I know I will miss this particular kind of all encompassing, all consuming, all refueling closeness...
