What Binds Us Together, What Tears Us Apart

"The moment the child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new."

No matter how many times you may read that, how many times you may meditate on the sentiment, until you are born as a mother you will and can never understand it. I don't say this out of arrogance or self-conceit, it is a simple truth. The birth of a child means the rebirth of a woman. She is taken apart and remoulded, in the blink of an eye. On the outside we look the same, but on the inside we are changed, left open and vulnerable, at the mercy of this tiny child we hold in our arms. Yes, motherhood, it is one of the great deciders. A decider of who we are, what we will become. It makes us or it breaks us. It is a glorious journey of self rediscovery, a journey we gladly embark on, filled with hope and possibility. We meet not only our child, but the new us. The us we call mother.

But despite the wonder of motherhood, for many, including myself, it can be a time of great loneliness. Where unshakable relationships once stood, now chasms gape. The distance between mother and non-mother widens, by no fault of anyone, but by the simple passing of time. Canyons eroded by priority and misunderstanding. Yes, motherhood, it is what binds us together, and what tears us apart.

I was the first among my friends and close family to marry and have a child. Of course I knew others who had children, but their children were much older, or we weren't particularly close, exchanging polite birthday messages on Facebook and little more. One of Rod's cousins has a child born a year before Ricky, but he and his wife live in Cape Town. And the gap between our mothers' generation and ours is too taxing to navigate. Motherhood changes over time. It evolves, as do the mothers. No, when Ricky was born, my journey into motherhood was to be a lone excursion.

I am no stranger to being alone, to doing things alone, both by my own design and not, but this was a different sort of alone. Those around me expected (and still expect) me to carry on with life as I had before, but that is simply impossible. Not because I have a toddler in tow, but because I am not the same person I was before. Yes, the foundation is still there, but the cracks have been filled in with something different, something many don't understand, because they have yet to experience it for themselves. I can feel some around me wondering when I'm going to get over new motherhood and go back to who I was, but the truth is I never will. The change is permanent. And if that leads to a permanent schism, then so be it.

I won't lie and say I wouldn't have liked a friend along for the ride, someone who understands the complex nuances of motherhood. It would have been comforting to know that the raw vulnerability felt in the early days becomes the norm, and that you grow to respect and appreciate it. I would have been delighted to have the company of people who didn't cringe every time Ricky would cry for food, or judge me because I didn't hop to at every squeak or grunt. And I would have liked to have a friend who understood the change in me without holding me somehow responsible for it. Yes, I was lonely.

A couple weeks ago I had coffee and a catch up with an old varsity friend. Her little boy is now 6 months old and, like me, she is the first in her circle to have a child. Chatting to her I heard my very own sentiments echoed. Despite having not seen each other for 11 years, we chatted like no time had passed, bonded by our shared experience of motherhood. It warmed me to know that, despite my loneliness in the early days, I was not truly alone. Mothers the world over are feeling these exact things that I am feeling.

Please understand, I am not negating the experience of those new mothers who have friends with children. My bestie Nats has a little girl of five and a half months and her experience, while different from mine, is not necessarily better or easier. Motherhood, in all its varieties, has its challenges, and regardless of how many people you may have around you that understand, it is still a deeply personal journey that leaves you changed in your own way.

Ricky is now nearly two years old, and I can still feel those gaps growing between myself and those women around me who are not mothers, slowly and steadily expanding like the universe. Every day there is less understanding between us, less in common between us. But at the very same time, I feel a growing understanding with those who are mothers. An unstoppable force pulling us all closer together, uniting us under the umbrella of mother.

I am by no means suggesting you selfishly throw away your childless friends because they might lack understanding of your reality. What I am saying is that you should not punish yourself for any distance that may happen to grow between you. By virtue of the child at your breast you are a different person, whether you realise it yet or not. You have been altered and reborn to be the best possible version of yourself so that you might care for your child. That doesn't deserve punishment, that deserves celebration.

You are new, you have been made new, and you will find your feet.

Yes, motherhood. It is the great decider. It is what binds us together, it is what tears us apart.