Oh mother, know thyself.

I never liked children. They’re noisy, they move too much, their hands are either up their nose, or up their butt or in their mouth, they eat sloppily, their breath always reeks of chocolate, they touch themselves in public and they kick the back of your chair in an airplane. There really is very little to like. And I really am not sold on this innocence shit,  I believe that children are, essentially, at their very core, deviant creatures who are out to make you regret you ever thought, in your selfish egotism, to procreate, whether willfully or by accident.

And then I had my own. I know you’re probably thinking that is where I say that I changed my mind and started thinking that children are the best thing that could ever happen to anybody, but you’re wrong. As a non-drug user, I would say that orgasms are probably the best thing that could happen to anybody, up there with a good plate of pasta, or a great glass of wine, or a cigarette, or best yet, an evening that encompasses all of these things…the downside being that you may end up fat, with a hangover, and probably pregnant.

Now, children are not for the faint-hearted. You have to be physically and mentally strong enough to withstand not sleeping for days on end, not faint from the sight and smell of poop, and not get embarrassed by the endless puke on your clothes. And I am pretty certain that I am not the only woman who has walked confidently down the street, reveling in the appreciative stares of passers-by only to discover that their smiles were not directed at her dazzling beauty but rather, at the muslin cloth still hanging on her shoulder or the two circles of wetness on her boobs that mirror the shape of her round sunglasses, now conveniently used to hide her shame.

No, there is nothing to like.

Yet despite all the indignity, discomfort and embarrassment of motherhood, I loved my babies. All of them. I couldn’t resist holding them all the time, hugging them, kissing them, just generally coddling and being close to them. I fed them, bathed them, changed them and lulled them to sleep happily and without complaint but I didn’t think this was anything special. Mother cats feed their young and groom them, birds look for food for their kids and even teach them to fly! Elephants stay with their young, lions teach their cubs to hunt. I didn’t think myself too different from any cow or pig out there. In fact, as mothers, I think we would do well by learning from animals to let our children free once they are autonomous.

For most of their childhood, I set out to distance myself from the role of mother to my children. I set out to define myself as anything but. Yes, I had offspring, but so did my neighboring dog. I was first and foremost a writer, an editor, a blogger, I even described myself as an athlete in order not to be brandished as simply “a parent.” Any free time I had was spent reading, doing crosswords, exercising, all in the pursuit of eternal progress, endless advancement, fighting against the inevitable corporal and cerebral decline that escorted parenthood.

I ran a marathon, did a triathlon, wrote a book, started a blog, even got myself a very boisterous dog and became a failed quasi-dog trainer, all in the pursuit of new challenges. Children are what stood between me and greatness. Now all I had to do was wait for them to leave home and resume my path.

And then one summer they started leaving. One by one they started going out, traveling to summer camps and taking summer jobs. And I realized that instead of slowly resuming my life, I was on hiatus. Paused. Waiting for them to come back. I rarely wrote, exercised less and was generally unable to take a difficult argument from A to Z because I could not focus much. Even books lost their appeal. Candy Crush became my friend until my kids came back home.

The moment I had dreamt of, fantasized about, played over in my head time and again while changing, feeding, running after, nursing and lulling to sleep had come. And I had no idea what to do with it.

That is when I realized that in the long, arduous journey during which I was to become a writer, a reader, a thinker, an athlete, a dog trainer (I even tried Bridge), I had in fact, become a mother.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m having tea with the neighbor’s dog.