Mother moon
The discomfort of becoming who you want to be
In December 2024, I began traveling around the world with my partner, Josh. I'm sharing posts along the way to document the journey, and explore the many learnings and feels that travel brings.
In the back of a truck in Vang Vieng, Laos, I was on my way to watch Josh try paramotoring; the act of propelling into the sky in a bare bones metal contraption with an industrial fan on the back and a giant kite shaped like a crescent moon secured above it. The driver stopped outside of a guesthouse in town, getting out briefly to beckon two more people inside the car. A man and a woman climbed in the back, a young couple from Belgium. We exchanged polite chatter and nervous anticipation for the impending vertical pursuit. The man stared down at his feet next to me, his hands clamped together between his knees, “I’m scared of heights... but I’ve been doing things to practice. I once jumped off a rock, like three or four metres.” I smiled at the cautious courage in his voice, the leap he was attempting to rationalize; from a ten-foot cliff to the precarious reenactment of a bird’s life.
A week earlier, the baby news had begun pouring in; four of my good friends had called or messaged or sent a video to share that they were pregnant. Their words were hopeful but hesitant, shrouded in the learnt doubt of the first trimester; brave custodians of hidden beginnings. When I think about becoming a mother, the leap is unique, inexplicably intriguing and terrifying all at once. The decision to carry a baby promises a long meditation (or rumination) on all the ways in which life will change. When I was younger, I was compelled by the logistics of having a baby. Like many small children, I was enamoured by dolls; acting out duties of care and pushing a plastic stroller to the park for picnics. As a teenager, I discovered a show called Bringing Home Baby, an exposé on the first 36 hours after birth; the first cries, the first bath, the first of many sleepless nights. Now, in the first year of my 30s, seasoned by a decade of shaping my own life, I think a lot about how a baby would change me, and the way I move through the world.
When I listen to my friends describe their symptoms of pregnancy, I find myself fixated on the discomfort that accompanies the journey to motherhood. They’ve described the physical toll, as well as the emotional and mental gymnastics; the changes already in motion. “It was horrible feeling unwell for two to three months, but the fear of loss was so overwhelming. I think once I reached week ten, I felt less stressed about it all.” One friend messaged, “I bet by month eight I’ll be horseback riding while eating anchovies.” She joked. Over the course of four months of moving around the world, I’ve navigated many lower stakes moments of discomfort with varying degrees of grace. After a slow recovery from a nasty case of food poisoning in February, I wanted nothing more than to be comfortable. Long lines and squished airplane seats were suddenly unbearable. Weeks of sleeping in rooms with no windows (or views of concrete) and on pillows that were either too high or too hard became cyclical tools of torture. Much to Josh’s dismay, my moments of malaise often manifested in curt commentary or determined silence. Somewhere inside, I had decided my discomfort made me bitter, frequently incapable of enjoying what was in front of me.
When I shared my low moments with friends, I tried to rationalize my distaste away, circling around the temporary nature of my reality to shorten the distance between the places and routines that reminded me of myself. Exchanging paragraphs with a friend one afternoon, I relayed some trying moments amidst more positive reflections of the trip so far; the chance to lessen my fear of the unknown, broadening my understanding of the world, and the hopefulness of connecting with new people. “It seems that peace doesn’t mean comfort,” she wrote back amongst words of encouragement, rolling out an ease of understanding so integral to my female friendships.
All four of my friends have now emerged from the first trimester and continue to report diligently on their evolving experience each time we talk. Even though I am physically far away, I can’t help but feel connected to them, to marvel at the surreal reality that lingers down the road; a world where my friends give birth and embark on many new firsts. With every month that goes by on my own adventure, I’d like to think I’m getting better at surrendering to the weight of a place, the peaks and valleys of every leap forward.
After Josh and his paramotoring pilot soared into the distance that day in Laos, the Belgian couple took off together soon after. Content in the role of observer, I watched them loop around high above me, gliding next to one another past an early moon. A couple days later, Josh and I flew to Vietnam where we began crossing the country from south to north. We spent the first week in Da Lat, grateful to feast on a new menu; deep bowls of warming broth peppered with fresh herbs and the airy delight of bánh mì. Anchored by the charm of another beginning, I willingly found my rhythm again. Bumping around from city to city on long bus rides over the next month, I was increasingly in awe of my friends muscling through the demands of growing new life. One of them sent me a voice note the other day, “The only thing I want to be more present with right now is myself and the changes... I’m reminding myself, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to be sharing this experience with my future child’ — what it was like to be pregnant with them.”
Thank you for reading!
