I am a mother now.
I didn’t realize how tired I’d be.
I didn’t know what the fear would be like.
Because mothers get scared.
When I was a child,
I didn’t know how scared my mother would get,
When dealing with a situation.
Or that she did certain things out of fear.
The kind of fear mothers experience is present 24/7.
It’s the kind of fear,
That makes you stop and think,
Who have I become?

My mother passed away suddenly,
As soon as I gave birth.
People think their mothers will be there,
To help them out when they give birth.
But for me,
It came as a shock.
I had just given birth,
But I couldn’t enjoy the feeling.
People who came to see the baby,
Were dressed in black.
Even though I was excited during my pregnancy,
I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening,
After I gave birth.
I felt like a mother,
But I couldn’t be a mother,
Because I myself needed a mother.
It was tough the first eight months,
But then things got better.

I went back to work after three months,
Which was another change.
One is suddenly a mother,
Then suddenly a working mother,
Then suddenly without a mother.
I didn’t want to lose my job,
And I didn’t want to fail as a mother.
I was a machine.
I would go to work,
Even though I didn’t want to,
I was still tired.
Not from giving birth,
But from making sense of everything that had happened.
When someone dies,
You take your time to come to terms with it.
But I couldn’t,
Because I had to take care of someone else.

I failed at breastfeeding big time.
How do I even breastfeed?
It made me feel that I was failing at everything,
And that everything was going wrong.
But when I sat myself down,
Calmed down,
And went back to work,
I realized that a person has to go back to work,
And carry on with their life,
Because that’s how life is.
And even though we want to be mothers,
We ourselves need our own mothers.

It took a long time for me to become a mother.
Yes, I was a mother in the sense that I was fulfilling all my duties,
But the connection itself wasn’t there,
Because I was lacking another connection.

Actually, it’s not even necessary.
I was just forcing it on myself.
Do I have to breastfeed?
Do I have to have a connection with you?
I don’t even know what this connection should be like.
I’m at a funeral now.
I’m in a completely different place.
I realized that it should come on its own.
Just because I gave birth,
Doesn’t mean I have to force myself to breastfeed.
Just because I gave birth,
Doesn’t mean I have to smother my baby with hugs and kisses.
I need to cry,
And realize what happened.
I need to get my life together.

We grow up in a society,
That fosters the idea of being the perfect mother.
The mother that makes sacrifices.
Are you really a mother if you don’t make sacrifices?
No mother has it easy.
But I don’t think that’s right.
Motherhood doesn’t mean that I should pretend to be in perfect condition all the time.
It’s okay to feel tired or upset.
It’s okay to not want to breastfeed.
It’s okay to not even want to see the baby.

I didn’t feel these things when I was 9 months pregnant.
It was a completely different experience.

We’re not supposed to ask mothers to behave in a certain way,
Just so they can be perfect mothers.
I don’t need to be a perfect mother,
Or a bad mother.
I just need to be a normal human being.