My Health... Then and Now...

When I was young, like late teens to early twenties young, I thought about my health in two ways... Am I dying? Nope, nothing else is really worth looking in to then. And am I fat? The fat thing wasn't exactly a "health" question.

I abused my body in all the ways I will never admit to my daughter. I had a five ended candle and all ends were aflame. Just the idea of prioritising my 5-a-day or sleep seemed to be for the weak or for people with far less to do at 4am.

Forgive me readers, I was a (over) confident and (over) energetic arts student.

Nostalgic times of self-neglect aside, now I'm a Mum. Now I've experienced pregnancy and in the midst of it once again. I breastfeed. I am sans that boundless incomprehensible energy. Now I am aware of my body, my health and I ask more questions about my body besides "has a leg fallen off? No? Then yeah I'll come out!"

I'm really getting why on planes they get parents to fit their oxygen masks before their children's. I'm finding myself fixing Euna's first a lot recently. Consequentially getting myself in a pickle and ending up no help to anyone. Like if I wake up hungry. I think to myself "I'll get Euna's breakfast first" Because baby's go first. I make porridge. I get Euna in her chair. By this point I am heaving over her milky bowl of torture...

So it's hard at the moment. To all the people I have recently told "I feel fiiiiine!" I was lying. I don't feel fine. I feel lucky and I feel beyond excited. But moment to moment, between the s
cans and midwife appointments, when I;m not ogling baby clothes or names, when I'm not envisioning a new nursery or daydreaming watching Euna paw a dolly like a mini-mummy... When my mind is on everything mundane and chore-focused, it's hard.

I'm tired.

My friend always says "you don't get something as miraculous as a baby without a journey beforehand". So I travel. We travel.

When I'm old I am sure I'll look back at moments where I heaved over a bowl of baby porridge and see magic. I wonder if I can romanticise these moment in the present.  These moments can't be romanticised in the present. They need to be hard now to be looked back on and seen as the dues you paid. And remember this is my second time. This time I'm a walking spoiler alert who knows that at the end of this  is someone you'd do it all a thousand times for.

So I'm taking perspective from that. Spending a little more time prioritising my oxygen mask (aka food, sleep, downtime, license to hormonally rage... *insert any other pregnancy necessity here). And I may also stop obsessively insisting I am fiiiiiiine.

A moody black and white for a slightly moody post...