863 Nights*

(Written on Sunday)
Last night was my first night, ever, with out my sweet, precious boy. Since the moment he was a wee seed growing in my puku (and before, if you were to think about it in such a way), and for 863 continuous, beautiful nights after his birth we have never been apart.
Curling up with my beautiful little fellow at the end of a long day, for me, has always been one of the sweetest rewards Mama-hood brings. It is the best part of my day :-).
I always knew the time would come, when eventually he would spend a night away from me once in a while, but I also knew I would find it really hard when the time finally came. And I was right... I cried after he left with his dad, and when he came home again today.

In the past three months, since the separation, the hardest thing for me to deal with has been the time spent away from my son. The decision to have a child was a very conscious choice for me, a choice that I made because I genuinely wanted to have a child IN my life, not to just have a child. Having never spent more than 3 hours away from him before (and that in itself was very rare), and then all of a sudden being without him for 7 hours one day, or two hours every evening, was like having my heart ripped out!

That has, by far, been the hugest hurdle for me to work through since separating from Chris. Time away from my little love. Lots of time away from him. But what has helped me to get through that has been the knowledge that, though he often does it in a different way to me, he loves our sweet boy JUST as much as I do. Our son's secondary attachment (and only just secondary, in my opinion, now that he is 2.25) is with his father, and it is not just OK for him to spend time with him, but healthy and important, for both of them.

I am working at making positive use of my new 'free time'. I have started up yoga classes again, and have managed to make it to a couple of evening craft groups (some woodwork, needle felting, stitch'n'bitch), and this week I'm hoping to make it to my first life drawing class. So all is not lost. And though I still very much feel that I am deep in transition, and will probably be for awhile yet, I like to think that when I settle into this new way of life, that the time I am spending with my darling boy will be far more conscious, present time. I feel I am on my way to that already, but still have some way to go.

Transition. For me, this is the place where I know what I DON'T want in my life and am moving away from that. Equally important is that I am clarifying that which I DO want, and am consciously moving towards it. But the terrain is unfamiliar, and though it can feel exciting and full of promise some days, it can just as equally be lonely, scary, and uncertain. Lucky I like a great adventure! :-D.
Arohanui, Tink Xx*