I am a mother.

That’s still such a strange feeling and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.  More importantly, I will work forever to be it.  I get to be a mother when I never expected to be one.  I was the crazy hippie aunt, you know?  The one with a martini on a Monday and the quiet corner of a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon.

The past year has proven to me just how far the mind can go in polar opposite directions.  It’s proven to me just how far I will go to follow it.  How willing am I to forge a path through the unknown on a daily basis and how grateful am I for that chance?  I’m learning those answers every single day.

The first 7 weeks have given me life and taken some away.  I am working to not feel guilty for the rough times.  I’m working to quiet myself and enjoy the good ones.  I’m working to take in every moment of both.

This is the ultimate game changer, freedom fighter, heart breaker, and peace maker.  It encompasses every single challenge in daily life and compacts itself into one tiny being who dictates everything about our next move because that is her job.  She has all of the things she needs while we are endlessly guessing, second guessing, determining, repeating..

What does she need?

Do we have that?

How is she doing?

How are we doing?

How are we?…

We are tired.  We’re usually hungry because her timing is fine-tuned to interrupt every single attempt to have dinner in its original state before the reheating begins.

We are lucky.

We leveled up.

Holly Jewell Bauer

**1-7-19**