Getting pregnant at age twenty years old pretty much ruined my life.
It ruined partying and beach trips and all-nighters.
It ruined carefree and ‘don’t give a crap’.
It ruined meandering around this world trying to figure out who I was or what I wanted to be because when that baby came out of my body, I was something.
I was profoundly and unquestionably without a doubt or a choice …a mother.
No one throws a party for you or pats you on the back for being a parent when you are a junior in college unmarried with an unplanned pregnancy.
No one.
But that little miracle, which was the end of life as I knew it, was Beau and because we didn’t have a choice we began to grow up together.
I learned patience, slowly.
I learned temperance, here and there.
I learned to care about others and hoped I was teaching him the same.
That little life changer just turned twenty-one.
I repeat. My son is twenty-one years old.
I have raised a child to adulthood; he’s old enough to drink, smoke, sign up for war, vote, and drive a car and all is well.
Feel free to clap for me.
My only wish is that I have left him as unscarred as I possibly could, and I hope that he got as much from me as I got from him.
I hope that all the things I now have pasted into a scrapbook and plastered into my memory: every picture, every art project, every train ticket from our travels, every small shell from our beach trips, every day of throwing baseball together, every hour of playing small superheroes, every minute of lining up Thomas trains, every night of dancing on the bed or our tradition of screaming curse words on New Years Eve means as much to him as it does to me.
But I doubt it because as I look at him on his twenty-first I realize that every day every hour every minute that I’ve spent with my son are the once in a lifetime gift that he gave me.
So happy birthday kid and thanks for ruining my life, in the best way possible.
About Rebecca Suder