I found this picture of myself and started to think about how my son will turn three next week. It’s hard for me to believe that I am a parent to a toddler and how this little person is constantly blowing my mind with his daily accomplishments.
Life as I know it now is so different from when I first moved to NYC. I am usually a night owl and love to hang late at night. I would go out and see music at least three or four nights a week plus play gigs and do a lot of hangin’ with my friends. I would play a session at least twice a week and I would practice voice and compose for hours. When I wasn’t music obsessed, I would spend hours in the kitchen making lots of food and trying out labour intensive recipes just for one meal. Ahhh, those were the days.
Now, if I stay up past midnight I need to recuperate for two days or so. I consider it a blessing when I can practice 45 minutes three days a week. I have a session about once every two or three months and I go out to see music about that much also. If a meal takes more than 30 minutes to make, I scratch it and thank goodness I did all that hanging with my friends in the past cause now I hardly get to see them. You would think that with this comparison why would anyone want to have kids or maybe you would think that having a family costs way too much of your time and money.
As I look back at these past three years, I can honestly say that yes, I miss hanging out, I really miss sleeping in, I would love to practice more and it would be nice to get out of my apartment for motives other than taking my son to preschool etc. But when my son starts talking, laughing, asking questions and getting excited about the adventures we will have together (imagined or real) and when he sighs with contentment when I sing him “In The Wee Small Hours” before bed and says “Mama, I love you,” I realize that there is pretty much nothing better for me. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want time for myself to do what I’d like but as I see my son growing older (and way too fast may I add), I don’t want to miss a second of it. Sounds so cliche and there is no other way to describe how I feel. I love being his mom and I can’t believe I waited so long to have this experience. I’m excited to see how my son grows up and of course all my virtues will be tested during that time. It is the best adventure I have ever been on and I am so happy to be a mother, it is the role of a lifetime.