(1/2) On motherhood: Feeling different

When you become a mother, you just feel different. I couldn’t quite put a finger to it except to say that, you just feel different. Or maybe that’s just from my own standpoint. I feel different everyday. I'm still the same me but I am different in more than a thousand ways.

So different that, for me, to use one word just cannot encompass all the feelings of being a mother. So inadequate, I think. And honestly, I don’t think there’d even be one word that can do that. Even to use the adverb motherly might not suffice because other than implying about being a mother or showing attributes that of a mother, it is simply vague. That’s just like an arrow aimed for bullseye but fell meters short off the target and didn’t really come close to hitting it.

So, what precisely are the attributes that make one motherly? Such a loooooooong long list of adjectives, I might say. More patient. More considerate. More loving. More enduring. More intense. More compassionate. More perceptive. More sensitive. More, more and more. My best attempt at capturing the feeling is only to add more before each adjective even though sometimes it really, really is MORE THAN just more. And all that may still be lacking and still conjure less than half of the picture, but that’s the best I can do to describe being a mother.

The amazing thing is, the capacity to be all that is immeasurable.

But then it also goes without saying that, sadly, not all mothers become these though. A sad fact. But consider too that it’s not even because one brought a life in this world, that makes one a mother. So they say. Why, then, would there be many of them urchins begging in the streets?

Getting back on track, I am not describing myself with ALL those terms. That would be cheeky of me and I am not that audacious yet. Haha. But then, that doesn’t say I am not hoping that one day Matt would describe me to be all that and more. That would truly be compliment of all compliments.

So what am I trying to tell then? First, I’ll venture a shy half stride forward to say, uhmmm, SOME. I feel I’m some of those terms. NOT ALL but some, just some. Especially when it comes to children. Kids. Matters concerning the little ones. Even if he, she, they are not my own, they always touch a chord in my heart.

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Do you feel the same way too?