The Search For Slay Baddie

I have done motherhood backwards and that’s just how I feel. The story we tell is we spend the first few years bonding and then we go through separation. This is not my story. I always felt that my daughter and I were separate beings. I did not feel as though her milestones were mine. I did not have anxiety about how she was perceived, or that I would be perceived through her. This began when the world insisted that it have a say. When separation was supposed to be officially happening. And when my success as a parent came with her ability to be apart from me. 

BUT SHE WAS INSIDE MY BODY TWO SECONDS AGO I felt that I was always shouting to no one.

Again and again I refused to give up our connection in exchange for other things: a marriage. A profession or job. For sure, a sex life. One could say I’d never had much of those things to begin with but her presence in my life made all of those things seem even less important. The world kept shouting that a kid needs you to have those but as loud as it got I just wouldn’t listen. The only voice I heard after a while was the one that was hers. 

And still I found myself tearing my hair out over a nine year old who won’t just brush her teeth.