Friday, April 8, 2011

New beginnings

I have been looking forward to April 8th, 2011 for about 9 months. I am about to transition into motherhood, and though labor did not begin today (not so far), it still feels like a special day, like I am standing on the edge of the great unknown, with an acute sense of the inevitability of everything in my little life changing forever.

The thing I have enjoyed the most about this period of pregnancy has been the extra motivation to consider what kind of person I want to raise. What are the qualities that I value most highly in people, and how are those qualities nurtured? Who will this little person be? The other thing I have loved about pregnancy is the way even strangers tend to smile at me in a beautiful way -- in a way that reminds me that we all have mothers, and that we all started out just like my little guy, wiggling in my belly right now. It's a powerful thing to be reminded of, and I've gotten that reminder several times a day for months and months. Such luck!

Of course, even in this idealistic stage, questions arise. Will I be able to love and parent this particular little person the way he needs to be loved and parented? Where will I find the patience to deal with a child, and how will I develop the skills? I am particularly blessed with a loving community and wise friends here in Santa Barbara, not to mention a marvelous husband, and those supports help me maintain some equanimity, but they do not change the fact of our unknowable future.

Having written that, it occurs to me that the future is always unknowable, I'm just more aware that it is unknowable to me at this particular moment. And in a way, knowing that enormous change is looming is a kind of knowing -- so often the moments that change everything can't be anticipated, and sometimes we don't even recognize them once they have happened.

So, I feel like offering a virtual toast to what has been a wonderful and transformative stage of my life. It's time for me to move on to a new phase, and this has all of the makings of a rich transition.

Whether the new phase will involve this blog remains to be seen -- the irony of not posting for two years after my last post was about procrastination is not lost on me! I remain as passionate about health and living meaningful lives in harmony with nature and our values. Will I write about those things here? I hope so, but I do not know.

Thanks for reading.