Like a Brick….Wall

So we all know I had a baby. A late baby – I was 37 when I had her. We waited a long time for her egg to get it’s shit together and live past 9 weeks….and god help us, she did.

I was terrified when I found out it was a girl. I was so certain that the universe owed me one and it was a boy that we did not even consider girl names. Foreshadowing, anyone?

I did not have a fantastically magical history with mother figures – mine abdicated when I was 4, and her replacement was expecting something more lovely that the uncooperative little heathens than she ended up with; gawd bless her she ended up with a fuckload more than she expected, and not just from me. Fortunately for us she stuck it out and is still my mother after 32 years. THAT BEING SAID – it’s a tough example to model, that there. I love my mother, often at my own expense, and I wouldn’t trade her for the world. She may not have given birth to me, but she earned that shit, yo.

I am sitting here in my living room alone, wine-infused and feeling sentimental…my parents asleep in my guest room, my partner in ours, and the baby in hers. My three generations. I watch my mother hold my daughter, and I revel in the relationship that she will have with her. I look forward to seeing the mother that my mother wanted to be, to me, come through with my daughter. I agree with all my heart when she says my daughter has her upper lip – while genetically impossible, she actually truly does have my mother’s upper lip.

When she rocks my daughter in the rocking chair that had seated my late grandfather for longer than I can remember, my heart is warm. When I learned I was having a daughter, I cried. I thought I would need intensive therapy in order to be a good mother to her. My partner told me to shut the fuck up and stop being so ridiculous, and to see the value in the relationships I had – and also to remember that I was my own person, and in time that taught me to also forgive. Knowing that some day I would probably beg the same forgiveness helped, I am sure.

I started this post thinking I wanted to talk about the glimpses I get of my daughter at 2, 8…12…and how much it both warmed and terrified me, but instead it turned into a validation of my mother and me and our daughter. Our relationship as three generations.

I think it’s gonna pan out.