On the other side

As my son turns six, I am aware that I appear to be clearly "on the other side" of my transition into motherhood. Although I continually face new challenges, I am no longer unsure about my identity as mother. Oh, but I vividly remember those early days, which for me stretched into years, when I no longer knew who I was and had no idea about who I was becoming.

Looking back I can see clearly that I was in the midst of an awesome rite of passage, but at the time I just thought I was inadequate and not adjusting well to being a mom. Once Max turned three, I knew that my very being had undergone a complete shift in identity...and eventually I felt at home again. For some time (three years I think) I occupied what the anthropologists call the "liminal space." It is the period of time in a traditional rite of passage when the inductee has been separated from his/her community and has not yet been reintegrated with his/her new identity. Liminality is the in-between space of "no more" and "not yet."

Many of us, as new mothers, feel this tenuousness. We know somewhere deep within us that it is much more than sleep deprivation. We whisper about this feeling to other moms on the playgrounds, we search on the internet late at night to look for answers, we read books, we cry and sometimes we completely fall apart for awhile. We have this sense, even as the joys of being a mother are being revealed, that a part of us is dying. We live in this dual reality of dying and being born at the same time. We hunger to be known, heard and held.

It is my deepest intention that these words and the community that will eventually form around them will be a sacred place for all of us to honor this profound journey we have undertaken.