On becoming

"To change or to grow to be; change or develop into by growth."

I looked up the definition of what it is to become. I felt this word roiling around in my gut - like the baby somersaulting and spinning inside my now stretched out belly. Like the perfect name my husband Ben and I will land on... soon, soon. The word called out to me some weeks ago, an opportunity to move into a new home -- where being Mom and being Me co-exist, negotiating chores, conversing over dinner as the day turns to night in brilliant hues. Becoming. So simple. Not so easy.

It begins with awareness, but if it stops there, it is just a nice day's outing and nothing new is really discovered, no new path is dug. This blog is a space to step into all of these new forms and to honor the old - less than a year ago, i became partner and wife to Ben, months later, from married to pregnant, now nearly no longer pregnant, but Mom, a form that is yet without clear lines. I can't see her --- yet. She hasn't arrived - yet. How will i welcome her when i don't always want her to show up. Will she step - hard - on "my" toes? Will she take over and raid my closet and call herself Mikaela? Yes, she will. I admire, love and fear her - the Mom that I am in the act of becoming.

Becoming is first a choice to step into who I am, who I perhaps have even been, but never embraced as me. I can't yet see distinguish the form, the outline and pulse and flesh of this new body.