one year ago

Exactly one year ago, I was a different person. I was hugely pregnant, uncomfortable, and impatient. I didn't know that the greatest day of my life was only two days away. In fact, I expected I'd be pregnant for the rest of my life another couple of weeks.

I remember the suspense, both the fear of and eagerness for the unknown. When I wrote my last post before meeting my son, I had only two days to go before experiencing the fast, furious, screaming, blinding, shot-out-of-a-cannon, horrible, delirious, absolutely awing handful of hours it would take to be introduced to him.

I couldn't know what was coming. It isn't something that anyone could explain.

I struggle to remember life before. Though I wouldn't have described it this way, I remember the cats being placeholders in a void I wasn't completely aware I had. (Now, the cats are more like toys that happen to think and move for themselves.)

Like trying to remember a dream, I have a sense of the unending stretches of time over which I was sole dictator. I remember snippets of the sensation of pregnancy.

I dreaded having to wait for Fletcher, before I even knew how amazing he would be. What would he look like? How would his voice sound? Would he be healthy? Would I know what to do?

One year ago today, I didn't know my son. I didn't know how to be a mother. I didn't know what my life was about to become.

Joy.