I think it is inevitable that I spent the weekend thinking quite a bit about being a mum.  What it means to me, others that I know, how it has changed my life.  Strangely I chose to celebrate being a mum by leaving my family and going off for a day of relaxation with a friend!  On Saturday my lovely friend Karen (who writes a beautiful blog here by the way) whisked me off to a spa where we spent the day popping our bodies in and out of hot pools, a steam room and freezing but refreshing waters.  In between we had the pleasure of time to chat, catch up, muse even.  A luxury for two busy mamas!

Sunday was a work day and I will tell you all about that in another post (tractor teething troubles and other farm stories) but a day shared with my boys.  But also a day of thinking about my own Mum and missing her as I always do.  And I started thinking about all the other mamas I know, so filled with love for their children, so dedicated, hard working, creative and enduring.  It occurs to me how lucky I am to know these women.

I’ve learned from the women that mothered before me, who are now grandmothers enjoying a new phase of life.  Or those whose children are a little older, teaching me their wisdom, encouraging through their experience.  Reminding me ‘you will survive’.  And sometimes it is a new mother, that joy and intensity of the first year, reminding me of how far we’ve come, how far we still have to go.  And there are the mothers who are raising children they didn’t birth, through adoption and marriage, or those without their own children who channel their maternal energies into guiding other people’s children or families on their own journey.

And there is the inspiration all around me, the new ideas, different thoughts, novel ways of doing.  I really couldn’t get by without this community of women to learn from, share with, lean on, brag to, commiserate with.  Some I know only from a ‘cyber’ relationship, others have been in my life since I was born.  The one thing they all have in common is their extraordinary hearts.

I can’t imagine my life without my children, but more than that, I can’t imagine myself without the changes that being a mother have wrought.  The challenges, the hardships, the learning, the struggles with exhaustion and patience; the triumphs, the joys, the extreme feeling of love and devotion.  Who would I have been without them?  I don’t know and can’t even think it possible, they are so much at the centre of my life and who I am.  Just as we were to our mothers, just as they were to us.