My son is eight months old. He is healthy. I love him more than I can articulate. I am also mourning, very quietly, the person I was before he arrived.
I expected to feel changed. I did not expect the change to include loss. Loss of my body feeling like mine. Loss of my sense of self outside of being someone's mother. Loss of the easy solitude I used to take for granted. Loss of the version of my marriage that was just two people.
I know I am not supposed to say this. The dominant narrative is that motherhood is everything you thought it would be and more. That any ambivalence is something to push past quickly and quietly.
I am finding that I need to name the grief alongside the love. Both are real. Both are big. And pretending the grief isn't there is making the love harder to access.
Has anyone else experienced this? How did you hold both things?