I can barely carry myself. I’ve been on my feet for hours at work, sagging under the stress. My new silhouette makes me off balance; the drop of a pen could send me. I’m eight months pregnant and endure for a purpose more profound than my figure. I sit down and feel the weight try to shift elsewhere – but there just isn’t more room. Discomfort swells with all that has grown of me.
But it’s life that I’m carrying, and I’m so grateful.
I hold her as a newborn. She gets both arms though I could rock her with one. My frame is no longer as laden, yet there are new weights under which I bend. The towering responsibility of something so grand humbles me, seemingly compounding by the day. Never have I been so tethered. Never have I carried so much. And never have I endured with so little of myself remaining. Years later, her tiny, bundled outline is still embossed on my chest. The heaviest six pounds and six ounces I will ever hold.
But it’s motherhood I’m shouldering, and I’m so grateful.
She’s so much heavier now. I have to prop her on my hip to support her. Someday, I will pick her up for the last time. While this may free my arms, the levy will persist. The weight of the world and the impossible task of teaching her how to live in it will hover. Soon I’ll have to engineer a new way to support her, and then a newer way. Raising her up in every which way I know how, even when it sinks me lower.
But it’s her that I’m lifting, and I am so grateful.
Admittedly, I grapple for those dreamy, weightless moments. When there aren’t tasks or worries or decisions to stack on top of myself. But now I’m accustomed, and to my great privilege, the heaviness is but a moment away. For without it, I would drift too easily and without resolve, unbound from the most beloved cargo of my life. This weight is every gram of who I am and care to be. It is weight I hope never to lose.
This weight is mine to bear, and I’m so grateful.
