it is just starting to dawn on me, that motherhood is not all that there is, not all that there will be, to my life, that although it will always be there, and never ever ever go away, it will not take up center stage forever, that other things will come, things that will be just as important, possibly more so, things that will take up my time, my energy, my dreams, things that i will define myself by, that i don't even know now, or maybe some of them i do, things that will displace/replace my children at the very core, but without ever quite doing so, i am starting to glimpse this other life, the life of mothers who are mothers but whose children are no longer children, i am starting to sense that this is the reality of motherhood, there is this time, this time that i am slowly, so slowly you would hardly notice, starting to leave behind, when i am a mother and you are a child, and i am your mother, and you are my child, and so from your need and my becoming we are locked into each other like pieces of a puzzle that fit so tight, so perfect that nothing could ever come in between, but then there comes a time, this gawky time i am beginning to slip into, when i am a mother, but you are no longer a child, and i am your mother, and you are still my child, and to dance this new dance, the dance of the empty shell, what does it mean to be a mother, when my children are no longer children.
this new shape i have taken on, because it was the perfect piece of puzzle, to accommoddatte, you, but then you grow and shape-shift on me, and what happens, then, to me?
