Childlike

“We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves”

-May Lamberton Becker

My friends are all completely different people. Since I was a kid, I have always had friends that I could go to for different things- some shared my passion for books, some shared my disdain for getting older, and some were the best to laugh with on a Saturday night. But I have come to realize that my friends and I have one thing in common after all; we struggle with our age. Not who we are as people, but where we are in life under these 20-something labels. It's something I have written about before, but it's something we discuss and think about constantly.

I haven't figured it out yet. There are times when I feel older than 25, like when I called the fire department a few nights ago. Our carbon monoxide detectors had been set off, and when we sat outside and waited for the trucks to drive down our quiet street, I was amused to see that some of the firefighters looked about 17. I wanted to pat their helmet and tell them not to be scared.

My mother had me at the same age I am now having my baby girl. I remind myself of this constantly. There are days where I am so overwhelmed at the thought of becoming a parent- probably the biggest change to my life. Becoming a wife is fairly easy on the scale of big things, because I am 100% myself with Sky. There was no huge transformation into Erika the Wife. But Erika the Mother is someone who doesn't exist yet. I have to figure out how to create her, what qualities I want her to have. This baby is already perfect (I can tell, trust me) and she deserves as close to perfection as I can possibly give.

She's been kicking and punching and twirling inside me for the last three or four weeks, and every single time I feel it, I fall in love even more. But a couple of nights ago, Sky felt her for the first time- not once or twice, but several times. It was probably the best moment of my life- my husband and I lying quietly, both feeling our daughter move. And at that moment, I wasn't thinking about how I'll be ready, how I will be capable of being what she needs, how this 25 year old will be "Mommy" to someone. All I could think was, "This is beautiful." And I know I will figure it all out...or at least, enough.