Matrescence: the birth of a mother.

All my life I knew I wanted to be a Mumma one day. 
I didn’t know then that in a way, despite how difficult our journey to fall pregnant was, that becoming a Mumma would be the easy part. Becoming her Mumma felt so incredibly natural for me. 

I didn’t realise then that it would be everything else that I would need to relearn and rediscover. How to be anything else with the most intense gravitational pull to this little human is something I’m still figuring out. I’m learning how to live with that tightness in my chest – that delicate fear of everything and nothing. I’m learning how to let go and how to surrender. I’m learning how to be a woman again. I’m learning how to be a sexual being again, how to dress again, how I feel about the world again and how I feel about things like my own body hair. 

I’m trying to grow my mane back again. I’m trying to feel comfortable in my own body again – I’m learning how to even recognise my own body again. I’m learning how to be a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a fur Mumma again.  I’m learning how to use my voice and how to articulate myself again. I’m learning how to listen again, how to relate again, how to be again, how to move again, how to feel again, how to flow again.

Sometimes it feels like a lot but each day I’m getting there. I’m figuring it out. Then, some days I’m not.

Growth in any form is never quite linear. It never stops. Who I am today might not be exactly who I am tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. 

I am just learning. 
Every single day. 
In my own way. In my own time. 
Just like we all are. 

Still me but different. Matrescence. 

Words by Rachel Charge.
rachelchargeceramics.com.au
@rachelchargeceramics