I have so much on my mind today. That’s a pretty normal occurrence in my life given my introspective, introverted ways—I think I’ve been lost in thought since birth. But, since I’ve been pregnant it’s been a bit different. I’ve read that it’s quite common to find yourself thinking about issues or events that you haven’t thought about in ages, and dreaming (quite vividly) of the past while pregnant. It’s a biological instinct to purge what you can from your psyche, and work through old issues, before your child is born. Given my previous perpetual state of introspection, you can only imagine how exaggerated this is for me now! I find myself remembering long forgotten events in detail, like the day my parents told my sister and I they were getting a divorce when I was 5-years-old. Or I am woken up in the middle of the night by nightmares about such random memories, like being teased by the boys in middle school. I have also been doing a lot of “taking stock,” looking back at the many phases of my life and how I’ve evolved and grown….and that has allowed me to sift out the pieces of my collective former selves that I’d like to take with me into the future, into this adventure called motherhood. It’s more than that though—I’ve been searching for the pieces of me that I can’t let go of, that I hope to cling to, as my identity shifts from woman to mother. More on that to come…..