Day One of My Eighth Life

Day one…. again

We have 17 follicles. Tears are gently falling into the Raisin Bran I am eating out of a mug. It’s so surreal. This moment. This is life number 8. In this life I am loved with every bit of what I didn’t have in the previous ones.

In this life I am a good mother not just practically, but emotionally. A strong partner and a financial provider. I blink twice and pinch myself once.

It’s still true.

My teenagers could feel angry or resentful about this. Nervous they will lose the number one spot in my heart. Nervous they never had it. Because I went back and got my own child, now I’ve scooped them up too. So they are so excited for a baby sibling.

I am 37 years old and going to be a new mother again.

On this other side of things how much of an oak will I be? I’m figuring out at this stage of knowing myself my limits begin to get real when someone I love suffers. In the words of the great Maya Angelou, “You have to have courage to love somebody. Because you risk everything. Everything.”

Courage is something I’ve never been in short supply of, but I’ve also never had so much to lose. I’m in that strange in between where I’m fully embracing it, but also can’t help “the rug will be pulled out mentality.” It’s fainter now, but the body remembers even after the mind has healed.

My body regularly reminds me I’m a survivor.

The only thing I may have never doubted is my strength. Now I must wonder about that? I didn’t know I could love a family so much that if a member of them suffers and I have to watch; shards of glass throughout my whole body. Don’t move it will hurt.

Being strong before was my only choice. Now that I’m thawed out what will happen when we face a trial? I’m scared. You get scared when you’re soft. When you’ve aligned all your fragments, you can get scared. They never told me this would happen. This is a beautiful scared. The other was a terrible scared.

We are having a baby. Today is day one of my 8th life within 1. I am a good mother. I will be a good mother.

This much love might just be the scariest thing I have ever faced….

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