Goodbye, 2012

This year, life, as I knew it, changed.
No, it didn’t merely change. It was turned topsy-turvy.

I had a baby.

Motherhood has been everything that I had ever imagined, and more. It’s joyous, fulfilling, crazy, disheveled, messy, humbling, exhausting, fun. It’s also incredibly amazing.

Don’t get me wrong, being a parent can be absolutely gutting. In the early weeks of his birth, I sank into a murky mix of expectations and pressure. A lot of it is due to my own doing, honestly. I thought I had to do it all: make home-cooked meals, keep the house in order, care for a baby, continue being a good wife and daughter and friend. I exerted a lot of mental weight on myself. Also, I had somehow birthed a child who despised naps. Oh, he fought naps with a vengeance. I didn’t sleep much at night and I didn’t have time in the day. I was alone and depressed.

About 10 weeks into his birth, I somehow snapped out of that misery and decided to carve my own parenting path. Screw the experts and the well-meaning advice, this is MY child and nobody knows him better than I do.

And in that defining moment, I became the mother that I was always meant to be.

In all honesty, though, that was the easy part. The road ahead is still long. Parenthood to us is about moulding my little man into a man who is a good son, and who would one day be a good husband (and father, if he should so choose). We have a little life in our hands and we have lots to do. And if the little man has a will and a temper like his mama’s, oh boy, have we got lots to do.

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But that moment when I heard his first cry?

Beyond imagination and absolutely surreal.

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So, 2013. I don’t know what is in store for me but I have a good feeling about it. After all that we have gone through, I think it’s time we sit back and enjoy ourselves.

Let the ride begin.