All mine.

I had my first son at seventeen. I was what I like to call unreasonably confident. I had no business being confident in my mothering of this child when I was still a child myself. But I wasn't scared. At least, I don't remember feeling scared. By all accounts, I should have been scared out of my mind. It was probably my lack of worldly experience and years on the planet that gave me this unreasonable confidence. I didn't know any better so I just...mothered. I know that ease in mothering didn't just come from thin air. I'm pretty sure it came from my own mother who was just really good at mothering. 

But I also read every single book and every single magazine I could get my hands on about pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood. Cover to cover. The Internet was also, ironically, recently birthed, so the best I could get from that was the dial up tone and half loaded images on a computer screen. It was good ol' fashion book learnin' if I was going to brush up on how to have a baby.

Looking back it was pretty clear it would just be him and me from the words, "You're pregnant." At the time, in my seventeen year old brain I had hoped it wouldn't be the case. But now in my grown up, adult thirty-six year old brain? The signs were clear from the beginning. It would always be just us. We tried to pretend to maybe attempt marriage, but not seriously. And now even thinking about that in hindsight gives me hives. Things worked out the way they were meant to.

I participated in an activity as part of a retreat a few weeks ago where we had to think of ten stories that were memories we had from our past. As random as they might have been, we had to write them down and decipher themes that ran through our stories. We had to choose five. So one of the stories was about the birth of my first baby boy.

When I had him his father wasn't there. He was on a family vacation. Which, at the time and for years afterward, was devastating to me. Not only that, but when my son was about a day old we were laying in the hospital bed, I was holding him, and we found out his father had extended his stay. By choice. For a family wedding celebration.

I know what you're thinking. What in the actual fuck? Right? That's what I was thinking, too. For years following that. I was just further devastated and held on to that devastation probably until I had my next child ten years later.

I felt like the whole situation ruined the birth of my first child and the memory would be forever linked to the story of his birth.

I felt like we weren't important. And me aside, I felt like my son didn't matter. It was like the birth of this child was no big deal and could easily take a back seat to a wedding reception. How could anyone not think his birth was important?

But as I was recounting that story, writing the words on paper over the drop down tray on the plane, and then retelling the story so many years later, it was a completely different energy that was with me.

The way I wrote the story and the way I remembered it no longer revolved around disappointment and devastation. I remembered it this way:

I was holding my brand new son. I remember a window with warm day light shining behind his perfect little head. He was born with a cowlick that made it look like a permanent side part. He was born a little man. The light shined behind him in that room and bounced of his dark hair and his perfect face. When everyone left the room I remember crying with him in my arms and saying, "It's just you and me, bud."

But I don't remember the sadness. I don't feel it anymore. I just remember how beautiful this child was. And I feel that. The energy around that memory feels as warm as the light that was shining behind that gorgeous little man.

Things worked out the way they were meant to. One of the truest and most painful facts in this universe is that time heals. The good stuff - that warm light - floats to the top. I remember being sad and hurt but I'm no longer sad and hurt telling the story. I only remember my perfect little man with the side part.

The hurts surrounding his birth story no longer matter. I look back on that story and that time with pride instead of resentment. Because that's mine. It's my story to tell. Side part, warm light, perfect face, raw, unconditional love - it's all mine.