Motherhood is something I rarely thought about before becoming pregnant with Liam. I don't remember fantasizing about becoming a mother or thinking about baby names. As the oldest child in an unstable home, I spent so much time helping with my siblings that I figured I would be prepared for motherhood. It would just be something that happened and I would handle it and that would be it.
This mentality stuck around for quite awhile until I started working on healing from my traumatic past (writing those words is hard for me because even though I know my childhood sucked in so many ways, I feel that there are so many people that had it worse). As a kid, both of my parents were absent in different ways. My dad was completely absent from our lives. No phone calls, no visits, no relationship (even to this day). My mom was physically present yet mentally absent at the same time.
It took me a long time to realize that I am repeating this cycle with my children. I am becoming a present yet absent parent. I am surviving motherhood rather than embracing this amazing experience in my life. And that's exactly what I don't want for my kids. I don't want to look back on all the ways I could have been there for them, on all the ways I could have been present. I want to look back and know that I am lucky to share my life with these little ones and know that I did my very best. And I hope that if parenthood is in the future for my kids, they want to be like the mother they have.
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