My Life Aquatic (as in everchanging, ebbing and flowing...)

Anyone seen The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou? There is a scene where the pregnant journalist says "I need to find a baby for this father". She's a little freaked out about being attacked by pirates, so it was a slip of the tongue, but it was a very interesting remark to me. (and I think to Bill Murray's character thought so as well. But it was a really weird movie, so I could be wrong.)

I think I used to feel this way about DH, and I have read other blogs and boards where similar emotions have been discussed. Things like "My DH was meant to be a father, I have to give this to him." Well, maybe so. Fortunately, for my own sanity, I no longer feel that I have a father on my hands in need of a baby, and I no longer feel that I am a mother in need of a baby.

Mother is such a huge title, one that so many girls aspire to, that I think often we see ourselves as mothers before we actually become mothers. We're Mothers in Waiting or something. And I know that the culture I grew up in, it was not unusual to carry that title in adult life as the main title, usually paired with "Wife and ...", but certainly between the 2, it was enough. And the wife part was much more disposable. I often thought that if I officially became a mother, I would shed my other titles: employee, artist, dog owner. They just wouldn't be necessary any more.

Being a mother without a child, being a captain without a boat... I don't have a child, but I am no longer a mother without, I just am me. I love this change because it means I am no longer defining myself by what is missing (children), or what prevents (infertility), or what I've lost (pregnancies). In fact, I am reluctant to define myself at all, because it is always evolving, we are all, hopefully, always evolving. I define myself as blessed, happy, a sum of all of my time, and that time continues to add to me, the ever-changing product.