How to be mother how to be wife

I used to fancy myself as quite a vivacious, sassy woman. I never even thought about the idea of how to strap a man down because I was too distracted by my confident strides and assuredly walking about town knowing just knowing I was the tits.

Then my vagina popped out a person.

In the process my body scarred, my mind sleep deprived and my ego battered.

I see now how my husband no longer comes home to his ferociously fun and strong woman but to a mother whose face is relieved as she hands him a baby before he's even had a chance to sit down.

I hear now the two concentric circles we talk in when we tell each other about our days. Him and I simultaneously carving out our lives as we talk in separate spheres, angling and savouring the shaded areas where our lives overlap, grappling for the shaded areas to come together into one perfect circle where our new family can live happily ever after.

I taste the chicken that I forgot to season because I can't lose myself into a pot simmering on a stove top without stopping midway to attend to baby.. Or to be honest don't blame the baby...I just plain forgot.

I feel how my husband could and maybe does get his dose of giggly excitement from people in his outside life now that I am more often grizzly mumma than sexy mumma.

That is the most vulnerable feeling of all. That my husband has an outside life and we are just the inner shell of life he comes home to. Right now I love how exciting it is when he comes home, the first family hug after he walks through the door. A daily pause enjoying a moment of completeness. I just hope and pray he will always be excited to see us.

I feel a seedling army attempting to invade our love's immunity, growing things that could potentially destroy a marriage if left unchecked. Insecurity, things unsaid, exhaustion.

And the worst is the irrational fear that family and everything I now devote my life to is impeding his full potential in life. Would he do things differently if it wasn't for me and baby? I know if I asked him this he would be devastated for me even thinking it.

We spent six hours in the car today. A scouting road trip for a rural life we will be embarking upon in a few weeks. Left baby with the grandparents because it would have been a terribly hard 15 hour day for a four month old.

We went to go find a new house for us to live in. I found something more valuable. In the car we joked, we sang, we ate drivethru junk food. Most of all we reconnected with the person we married and not just the person we live with. And I'm glad to report that I still find myself hilariously fun and searingly sassy.