I just want to know who you are.
I’m ready to
know you. I’m desperate to know you. I think about you all the time. I call you
by different names, different genders (the boy’s room, the girl’s room, when we
bring the twins home…). I try and guess you. Your age. Your hair colour. Your
eye colour. What do you like? Will I be decorating rooms with superheroes or
princesses? Cars or animals? What makes
you happy? Do you even know that? Where are you? How far away are you from me
right now? What are you doing? Are you
safe? Are you warm? Are you content? Are you in someone’s arms right now who is
loving you and preparing you for me to take over? Or are you scared, cold,
hungry, lost, alone, waiting for someone to help you. Perhaps you are happy.
Perhaps you don’t really understand that where you are isn’t safe for you. You
must be so confused little one.
Oh but!
I’m
going to be a mum.
I’m going to be your mum. I can’t deny I’m
stupidly, selfishly excited about that! I feel you in my arms…… (I know it
sounds romantic and naff but I do, I feel you). Or at least I feel your
absence. I know one day you will lay there and fill that gap. I understand I am
talking from my deep rooted longing to be a mother. I wouldn’t be here doing
all this if I didn’t feel that! The fact that you won’t have come from my body doesn’t
bother me one bit. You are my child. My children. I know that already. I love
you already (I know, I know, I’m being romantic, naff and idealistic but I do,
I love you).
But……
I do not know
you. Yet. I look forward, with such joy, to getting to know you. To figure you
out. To understand what makes you happy or sad and how to make you feel better.
To learn your bedtime routine and how to
calm you. Which stories you enjoy and you favourite foods. To learn to spot the
triggers, if necessary, and help you deal with them. To find what makes you
laugh and which songs you love to sing.
I do not love
you. Yet. I am in love with the idea of you, but how can I love you when I don’t
know you? Yet!
Oh but!
My
darlings, I will love you fiercely and forever. Because you will be mine and I will be yours.
We will travel this road together, wherever it takes us, tied together forever.
I
just want to know who you are.
Not that long ago I was thinking exactly what you wrote about, that somewhere there was a child I didn't yet know, but who I would have soon called my own.
ReplyDeleteIt's a really hard feeling to grasp if you haven't been through it, but you are article does a great job describing it, and reinvoking it for me.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment xxx
ReplyDelete