Beautiful Chaos
On Motherhood, Finding Yourself and Overwhelming Love
jessica urlichs
PE NG UI N LI FE a n i mp ri n t o f pe ng ui n boo ks
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First published 2024 001
Copyright © Jessica Urlichs, 2024
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For the mothers who walk each other home
1 Contents Introduction 5 Welcome to Motherhood 8 Mother in Waiting 10 Carrying You 13 Before We become Two 16 It was You 17 Baby Blues 20 All I See is You 23 Days of a Newborn (and they really are just days) 27 Dear Mama 28 My World 31 From One Mom to a Mother 33 I Would Tell Her 37 My Season 40 Mother’s Skin 42 I was Told 45 I Love You 46 Dear Little One 48 I’m Awake with You 51 Magic 53 Remembering You 54 Postpartum is For Ever 56 I’ll Come to You When You Call 58 That First Smile 61
2 Hello, Old Friend 64 My Everything 66 Thank You 68 18 Summers 70 Just You Wait and See 73 Mama, You’re Beautiful 77 The Paradox of Motherhood 80 When I Say You are Everything 83 Hand-me-downs 84 You’ll Always be My Baby 85 Things I Would Tell Myself as a New Mother 88 Today You Turn One 91 You before Me 93 I Grew a Baby while I Had a Baby 96 The Wild Child 97 Blink and You’ll Miss It 99 A Letter to My Firstborn 101 I’m Your Safe Place 104 The Every Mum 108 One to Two 111 Dear Friend 114 Some Things I Know 117 Today You Turn Two 121 Loving Them with You 124 My Favourite 126 Dear Second Child 128 Not Every Day is Beautiful 130 Just to Let You Know 133 Not ‘Just’ 134 Today You Turn Three 136 A Boy Will Always Need His Mum 138
3 Growing Up 141 Fairy Mother 143 Stay Little 145 And a Little, I Let Go 147 Today You Turn Four 150 I Do Not Know Everything 152 Just a Minute 155 Mothering in the Darkness 158 Dear Husband (the future can wait) 160 Stay-at-home Mum 163 Rubbish Day 166 My After All 169 Will You Remember? 173 My Resumé 176 Today You Turn Five 180 Here’s to Us 182 Looking for Her 185 May He Always Know 187 May She Always Know 190 With You 193 Meant to be 194 For You, I Would Do Anything 196 If You were a Love Note 200 The Unseen 202 The Ways I Will Know You 204 I Love You, and I Miss Me 207 When I Leave This Place 209 Acknowledgements 222
Introduction
I was five when I wrote my first poem, and I discovered then how exciting it could be to read and write about something simply ordinary. I have written my whole life, mostly for myself, but somewhere along the way poetry changed for me; it became a way to turn the mundane into magic instead. Only since becoming a mother have I been reminded that the ordinary is extraordinary – my children have reminded me of that, and of my five-year-old self.
But as sacred and tender as early motherhood was for me, it also came with its struggles, so I wrote about those too. The highs, the lows, the confusion, the loss of identity, the becoming, the brutal and beautiful ways our children hold mirrors up to us. I decided to share my poems online (after a lot of nudges from my husband). It was incredibly scary being so vulnerable and facing the world, and it was also like one long exhale.
What started as scribbles in the notepad app on my phone soon became poems and prose that were shared far and wide. They started to create a ripple effect of sorts: other mothers were saying ‘same’, and expressing their vulnerability. Before long I was surrounded by this beautiful online village (for me that is what it felt like), the same one that encouraged me to write a book. Sharing these honest words with you all is also cathartic and healing for me, because motherhood is messy, and beautiful, and hard and humbling. We adore our children and sometimes miss ourselves. It’s so nuanced and, somehow, no matter the different paths we
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are on, we’re connected through motherhood. So yes, it’s scary when I think about my exposed heart on paper travelling the world, but then I think about who’s reading my heart and I know it’s OK , because ‘they’ll get it’.
I hope these pieces remind you of a time that was, or ground you in the time you’re in now.
I hope you feel seen in all this beautiful chaos.
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Welcome to Motherhood
When I entered motherhood
I walked through a little door
‘This is Motherhood,’ it read Everyone sat there in stripey tops
Exchanging pleasantries
Things scattered all over the floor
Bags overflowing
Nervous smiles
Connected by motherhood
Disconnected by unspoken truths
Then someone said
‘I love being a Mum, but this is also really hard,’ And suddenly I didn’t feel alone any more.
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Then someone said ‘I love being a mum, but this is also really hard,’ And suddenly I didn’t feel alone any more.
beautiful chaos, Jessica Urlichs
Mother in Waiting
It’s often said that I am made for this
Though sometimes I’m unsure
Because a mother wasn’t waiting in The girl I was before.
She didn’t lie in restless slumbers Memories made of night
And when the sky’s outfit would change
She’d struggle to see the light.
She’d never been so still before
While her heart continued to travel
She’d never felt so put together
While the stitching of her unravelled.
She’d never known the waves of pain
That were woven into her bones
How to move without their weight
Or how to dance alone.
She’d never been this shape before
Her body sore and broken
Where life did grow, her heart a home
Its door forever open.
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She’d never known a relationship Could balance on mountain ridges
An ocean in between them
As they built their tiny bridges.
She’d never known how love could change A person to a place
How home is found in the way we’re held In their smell, or in their face.
She’d never felt this kind of weight
Or how time could hold its breath
How silence could be deafening
How to give when there’s nothing left.
She’d never had to pretend to know
Question countlessly if she was wrong
And learn one day she wasn’t pretending
And she’d known all along.
Her feelings never leaked like rivers
Her time, never so poor
Yet richer in the ways
That didn’t matter as much before.
She didn’t know that nature could Be placed upon her chest
How watching them grow was a type of calm
That meant she would never rest.
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So though they say I was made for this I’m not sure I agree It wasn’t I that made the mother
But motherhood that made me.
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Carrying You
I carried you.
In a heartbeat you were one too. The beat of mine,
The first song I sang to you. Through pain and a force like no other, I carried you into this world.
My skin and smell, your first intuition.
Breathing beside you, as you breathed life into me. With tired bones and heavy eyes, I carried you.
With my sore body and full heart, I carried you.
With an aching love,
Our hearts whispering to each other as you fell asleep. Though I will cry, and you will too.
We’ll continue to sail along, Led by you.
With this, I promise to always carry you. What a privilege to be loved like this. The sleep will come. The shore will come.
So I understand if you want to be here. With one breath at a time.
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I will carry you. For as long as you need.
Because you carry me too.
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What a privilege to be loved like this.
beautiful chaos, Jessica Urlichs
