What Motherhood Means to Me

I’d like to tell you what motherhood means to me except it’s hard to sleep at night while hugging the moon, and juggling the milky way, and stuffing all the stars into my pockets.

There are times my body levitates, weightless without the tug of gravity on Earth. I’m swirling, rotating around, a planet out of orbit. Off course in more ways than one. I have left behind the life I thought I was supposed to lead and here I am. Supplanted on some foreign soil, battling an enemy I didn’t know I had.

And yet the language feels familiar. It’s a dialect spoken in hushed lullabies and whispered reassurances, spelled in unseen tears and unspoken fears. A language of silent love and hidden sacrifices. It’s in this unknown terrain, this extraterrestrial world, where I discover what I’ve become: a hugger, and a juggler, and a stuffer.

My pockets are quite full stretching out from where I stand on earth to outer space, but I am very much at home.

“Mommy,” blinky-eyed, my son looks down at me, a puddle on the couch, “We’re going to be late, aren’t we?” I look at the clock, “Yeah, looks like it,” I reply.

His tiny hand reaches out to me, and I take it, landing my ship back on Earth.