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Postpartum
Though I am not a mother, I equate graduating from college to giving birth.
Four years of late night snacks, countless tests, a few mental breakdowns and breakthroughs, and one painful ceremony later you receive a special delivery. Swaddled in a white post-marked cardboard envelope.
Your "baby," your hopes and dreams, everything you worked for,and painstakingly planned for.
Now what?
Framing is an obvious choice. Showing your "baby" off to family and friends as you smile and reminisce about how much you "loooooooved" college and the pregnancy as a whole. How you have never felt so proud and beautiful as you did walking around with swollen ankles and dark circles under your eyes, feeling the stress and weight of a two ton whale on your small frame.
Secretly hoping that, somehow, your peer's "ooh's" and "aw's" will magically fulfill whatever motherly gene it is that you seem to not possess.
You show your baby off like a trophy to anyone who will give you the time of day.
Only to secretly stare at your "baby" in disdain when no one is watching. Knowing full-well that your newborn could bring you all the success and joy you had planned for during pregnancy if you could only accept your end of the challenge. Motherhood.
Searching for a sense of motherhood, you stare at pictures of yourself on the day of delivery- dressed in a moo-moo and funny hat as you hug people who supported you throughout your journey. You can still hear people tell you how much you have going for you, and how great your new life will be once your "baby" is born. You can hear yourself respond by only speaking highly of all your Dr.'s and how every test and class was worthwhile and beneficial - while your mind is simultaneously racing as you try to fathom how you are going to turn your dreams into a reality- transform your "baby" from a spit-up machine into a fully-functioning member of society, and turn yourself from awkward college student into a capable mother of a college degree.
After a few months of staring at your "baby" thinking you will find a guide to motherhood printed somewhere on it, it all starts to click.
Not how to be a mother, but how to embrace the experience of figuring it out.
It takes time to fully embrace motherhood. All the responsibilities, challenges, happiness, and disappointments come at a cost. Tuition is one thing, but the cost of putting yourself out there and trying to embrace motherhood for what it can be, instead of what it isn't, is another.
While it is a mother's natural instinct to protect, you have to take off the baby scratch mittens at some point. And not only take them off your newborn, but take them off yourself too. You have to allow yourself the chance discover the world around you by feeling it with your bare hands, and maybe even scratch yourself once or twice to learn.
Because graduating college isn't only like giving birth, it's like being born.
Discovering the newness of the world around you. Seeing everything from a fresh perspective, and falling down once or twice before you learn to walk.
Understanding nothing, but believing in everything - even the impossible.
So here is a little motherly advice for the road:
Accept the things you cannot change and embrace the things you can. Be sure to wash behind your ears. Break the rules and test the waters. Use the bathroom before you leave the house. And lastly, try to fit circles into squares because throughout my childhood and college career I have still yet to hear of a just reason for why it's impossible- because nothing is my dear.
Four years of late night snacks, countless tests, a few mental breakdowns and breakthroughs, and one painful ceremony later you receive a special delivery. Swaddled in a white post-marked cardboard envelope.
Your "baby," your hopes and dreams, everything you worked for,and painstakingly planned for.
Now what?
Framing is an obvious choice. Showing your "baby" off to family and friends as you smile and reminisce about how much you "loooooooved" college and the pregnancy as a whole. How you have never felt so proud and beautiful as you did walking around with swollen ankles and dark circles under your eyes, feeling the stress and weight of a two ton whale on your small frame.
Secretly hoping that, somehow, your peer's "ooh's" and "aw's" will magically fulfill whatever motherly gene it is that you seem to not possess.
You show your baby off like a trophy to anyone who will give you the time of day.
Only to secretly stare at your "baby" in disdain when no one is watching. Knowing full-well that your newborn could bring you all the success and joy you had planned for during pregnancy if you could only accept your end of the challenge. Motherhood.
Searching for a sense of motherhood, you stare at pictures of yourself on the day of delivery- dressed in a moo-moo and funny hat as you hug people who supported you throughout your journey. You can still hear people tell you how much you have going for you, and how great your new life will be once your "baby" is born. You can hear yourself respond by only speaking highly of all your Dr.'s and how every test and class was worthwhile and beneficial - while your mind is simultaneously racing as you try to fathom how you are going to turn your dreams into a reality- transform your "baby" from a spit-up machine into a fully-functioning member of society, and turn yourself from awkward college student into a capable mother of a college degree.
After a few months of staring at your "baby" thinking you will find a guide to motherhood printed somewhere on it, it all starts to click.
Not how to be a mother, but how to embrace the experience of figuring it out.
It takes time to fully embrace motherhood. All the responsibilities, challenges, happiness, and disappointments come at a cost. Tuition is one thing, but the cost of putting yourself out there and trying to embrace motherhood for what it can be, instead of what it isn't, is another.
While it is a mother's natural instinct to protect, you have to take off the baby scratch mittens at some point. And not only take them off your newborn, but take them off yourself too. You have to allow yourself the chance discover the world around you by feeling it with your bare hands, and maybe even scratch yourself once or twice to learn.
Because graduating college isn't only like giving birth, it's like being born.
Discovering the newness of the world around you. Seeing everything from a fresh perspective, and falling down once or twice before you learn to walk.
Understanding nothing, but believing in everything - even the impossible.
So here is a little motherly advice for the road:
Accept the things you cannot change and embrace the things you can. Be sure to wash behind your ears. Break the rules and test the waters. Use the bathroom before you leave the house. And lastly, try to fit circles into squares because throughout my childhood and college career I have still yet to hear of a just reason for why it's impossible- because nothing is my dear.
