Oh, how they’ve changed.

That necklace, “mom.” My daily reminder that today I am what I never thought I’d be. What I never planned to be. What I didn’t even want to be. Fear crippled me from ever believing I could mother a child; my small mind couldn’t see past 1, certainly not 4. Yet here we are. Here I am. A mother. Fear once whispered, but the voice grew quieter each time I chose not to listen. A lioness where the coward once stood. My body has changed in too many ways to count, my eyes are most often sleepy, and my short-term memory seems to of left when motherhood arrived. My skin has softened where my four children first began their lives, but oh, how my heart has softened along with it. I see a simple Walmart necklace, handpicked by my only little girl because it looked yellow, mommy’s favorite color. Four beautiful souls who know me so deeply, and have the unconditional love for me to back it. Pieces of me I didn’t know would come to life when each of theirs began, and this true honor to have experienced motherhood. This is what I couldn’t see when I was speaking the very words “I’ll never be a mother.” This is what was on the other side of silencing the deepest, darkest, loudest fear I’d ever experienced- becoming a mother. And oh, how things have changed. Oh, how they’ve changed.