This thought didn’t cross my mind till later — much later — today {tonight?} that with the kickoff of May, we are officially beginning Birthday Month here at What You Be.

Not like I actually celebrate my birthday all month, that would be way too much anxiety and attention for me to handle. However, it does make me reflect back on last year at this time.

How different things were. What I was doing, or maybe more like not doing. Amazing, isn’t it … how quickly and suddenly things can change?

I know I had nine months, ten really, to prepare me for Baby J’s arrival, but nothing can truly prepare you for your child’s arrival. Nothing. This is equal parts good and not so good for me and those other planners out there.

I laugh, thinking of all the speculating I did leading up to his birth and these first few days that are finally here. I don’t want to think about just how much time I spent trying to pre-plan or pre-imagine or pre-try to get something done ahead of time that never happened anyway.

Just goes to show — there is nothing like right NOW. I need to remember this, as my mind is already racing ahead to July and much farther … wondering … how things will work out, how to balance it all … when all that I need to tend to is right here in front of me:

My child.

So yes, Birthday Month is never going to be me fancy free and footloose again. And yes, part of me ever so slightly mourns that old me … because those were simpler times with less responsibility, where this teeny tiny person, who doesn’t even weigh eight whole pounds yet, didn’t exist nor have the power to completely break my heart.

I can’t tell you how many times, just staring at him, I feel so much love and so much terror simultaneously overcome me. That’s what happens when you have a piece of you existing and being reflected back … you start to realize that love, the kind you thought you knew and knew well … you barely knew.

Nothing touches or even comes close to it.

For that, I am beyond thankful.