Thankful Thursday: My Path

Every day of my life since I found out I was pregnant at 19, I’ve woken up as someone’s mother. I’ve woken up with my priority being my beautiful, bright, wonderful daughter.

I’ve woken up knowing that, no matter what my day may bring, it has a purpose. I’m her role-model, her protector, her occasional antagonist and her friend. I’m the one responsible for her well-being.

I love being a mother. I love that feeling of someone in the world who is mine to love, wholly, unconditionally and without pause. I love the selflessness of maternal love, the complete devotion to my little girl and her happiness and wellbeing.

Urgh.... please excuse the extreme boobage, I thought I was sexy

In my life, I’ve been given opportunities and haven’t always taken them. I turned down an offer to do a degree in teaching and have never, ever regretted that decision. I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. And in the year I took off when I turned down my university offer, I met O’s father and formed the relationship that brought her to me. I’m not a teacher now, and I don’t get to spend my years ‘moulding young minds’, as it were. But you know what’s better than that? I’m someone’s mum. I’m soon to be someone ELSE’S mum. If I had been a university student, life wouldn’t have happened for me the way it has.

Even when my O is not with me, she is at the forefront of my mind. One or two nights a week, she stays in another house, for sleepovers with her Daddy, but this does not make me any less her mum. On these nights, I often peek in her room to check on her before realising that she isn’t there, or I wake and listen for her breathing. She is always at the forefront of my mind, as children should be to their mothers. 

Photo by the incomparable Jacqui at Miss J Media

 

So today, I’m linking up with Six by the Bay for Thankful Thursday. I’m going to be thankful for the opportunities I didn’t take (and the ones I did) that brought me down the path to motherhood. The path has been difficult at times, full of obstacles and sometimes painful falls. But it is the biggest blessing of my life to be a mother, and if you took me back to 18 and 19 years old, I’d do everything exactly the same (minus a tequila shot or 7)