July 10

New beginnings

Aching for the woman I used to know.
Her laugh was hearty,
her body fit,
her time her own.
My time now measured,
the air thick with responsibility.
How can she be found in this world of restriction?

Reprieve.

Inhale again the sweet taste
of freedom.
We meet again, a heady reunion.
Passion felt for adventure,
philosophy,
the outside world.
Returning: will the undertow prove too powerful?

Determined and tempered she emerges,
changed,
but not diluted.
Reconnected with the selves of the past:
some need space to grow,
some need to be let go.

But losses not the focus anymore.
A new beginning – a definition of self.
She has now the lioness’s pride,
and a home
for her heart.

I am now a mother.
Some things I have lost,
but much
I have gained.

“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”^*

Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.

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