The Woman and the Butterfly

Who am I?

When the caterpillar builds her cocoon, does she know of the intense change she's about to endure? How her body will literally melt into goo and miraculously turn into a butterfly? Does she know how one day she will stretch her wings and fly? Is that little caterpillar afraid? Does she exist at all in the butterfly?

When a woman has her first baby, she changes from just a woman to a mother. She knows it is going to happen, but she doesn't exactly know how much it will change her, no matter what anyone tells her. Her body changes physically, yes, but her heart and mind do as well. The woman she was before is still there, but she has forever changed, never to be the same again.

Sometimes if we are not careful the woman gets lost in the mother. She gets lost in the day to day tasks of diapers and laundry, lunch and bath time, snacks and cleaning, reading books and rocking babies to sleep. And if you have multiple children close together, this is even more likely to happen. Soon, you can't remember what it was like to not have a baby or young child in the house. Diapers and laundry and having a life revolving around snacks and naps becomes commonplace and the thought of life without it all seems like a pipe dream that you're not sure you want. Because when all of those things fade away, when the diapers become no more, when the last nap has been slept, when bath time doesn't require your constant attention, then the baby laughs and toddler snuggles and wonder at watching a baby grow slowly fades away too.

And when those other things fade away, who will be left behind? The mother? Or the woman? No, someone else will stand there. The woman has been forever changed. Never to return to the person she was before she became a mother. And the mother is not the same as she was when she first emerged. Both the woman and the mother exist, yet they both remain forever changed by the challenges that exist within being a mother.

Who will this new person be when she spreads her wings once again?

Who will I be?

Only time will tell.

Until then, I will embrace the woman and mother I am today.