The Anchor of My Soul: How Motherhood Rewrote My Story

I had yet another meaningful conversation with my personal trainer of close to a year, and today's topic was babies and marriage. She is getting married in January and once again strongly urged me to settle down. I nodded, smiled, and heard her out on how I must go about finding the right man. As always, I didn't disagree with anything she said and remained neutral. I listened to her post-marriage plans and everything she wants to achieve personally and professionally.

Somewhere in the middle of that therapeutic chat, I admitted that I have healed a fair amount, all thanks to my child's antics. While it is wonderful to have a loving partner, having a child is what truly increased my sense of drive. Suddenly, I threw myself with immense passion into everything I was doing—professionally, personally, artistically, through extra-curricular activities, and exercising. It felt as though I was on steroids, and at the center of it all was my son. I suddenly discovered a newfound zest for life and everything that goes with it.

This morning, for example, I woke up with very bad vertigo and felt my head spinning each time I put my foot outside the bed. Watching my clumsy movements, my child immediately mimicked the way I was walking (which was hilarious, obviously) and said, "Please don't die on me and make me an orphan." It brought a bittersweet laughter, quite frankly. As he said that, I realized this is why I am alive and why I throw myself into everything with such aggression. I didn't know this perfectionist side of me ever existed, and it has truly come to the fore ever since the birth of my child.

I live for him, and in him, I have found my healing—a very unfair responsibility to lay upon an almost three-year-old, but it is what it is. My son will always be my "sonshine," in this lifetime and hopefully the next. I am simply elated that he chose me to be his mother in this world.