It has been almost six years since we arrived on New Zealand’s shores. As someone who came from a tropical country, I have little appreciation for what seasons are and their significance to humans – which is apparently fairly significant. Seasons dictate your daily choices such as your clothing, food, holidays, and even your social activities.
I can, in hindsight, look at the events of my life, and connect them to a specific season as I have experienced it.
The first six years of our marriage has mostly ranged from autumn to winter to spring. We have toiled and built up our careers to the point that we were able to have a good harvest of our investments prior to having a child. We were able to save up and have a kickstart to prepare for the arrival of a child. We were able to enjoy each other’s company and got to know each other fairly well. It was a beautiful season we have now moved on from.
My pregnancy was summer-like. It was in the literal sense summer here in New Zealand – way too warm for my liking, but very sunshine-y and it held so many promises of a beautiful new season in our lives. I’d say it passed by quickly, but those nine months were very significant for us to mentally and emotionally prepare for this blessing of a new child in our family.
Now that our son has finally arrived, I know we are transitioning to a whole new season of which we know so little of. I’d say that since the start of my pregnancy, I have been learning to live life one day at a time. I remember celebrating every week I have carried him because my high risk pregnancy can bring a lot of good and bad surprises and I was really anxious I might give birth prematurely. Every weekly doctor’s appointment brought in different challenges for us. There was the potential cleft lip they saw in the scans, echogenic bowel, him being too small for his gestational age, and him being in the breech presentation. Week by week we had to watch out for these things and find how they will finally turn out. Fortunately, his breech presentation was the only issue that had a significance on us.
With Howell back to work and with me solely caring for Raphael for majority of the day, the value of living day by day made more and more sense to me. My compulsion to plan and to fix everything ahead of time are all out the window – there’s no planning everyday because I do not even know what time his next feed will be! It is frustrating not knowing what’s going to happen next.
For my art practice, I curently have 3 books in my pipeline – 2 of which I’m currently working on. I’m also building a body of work for my dream art exhibit.
Between everything I wanted to happen and my current reality of a first-time mum to a newborn, it’s like time has been suspended somewhere. I am at a loss and all I can do is live life daily – not out of choice but out of sheer need to preserve my sanity. I take small steps to get back to normal but it has been tough because I have real, physical bounds that stop me from going into full gear. I am stilll healing from my C-section and Raphael’s routines has not been established yet.
I have heard from more seasoned mums that I’d need to learn to cherish this season because it comes by so fast and that this is indeed just a season – it will pass eventually. My bubba will grow up fast and I can never turn back time and go back to how small he currently is. If this were all true, then maybe slowing down and being comfortable with the unkown is something I’d need to deal with for this season. How I’ll do it, I still do not know, but for now, I can decide to shut the computer down, breathe deeply, and maybe hug my son for a few moments longer…
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