My love

Love is sweet, like the legendary Baci Perugina chocolates, which still make a nice and useful Valentine’s or Mother’s day present. Love is also deep and it reaches much further than the stomach, it’s sometimes fierce, other times delicate, but always one of a kind. “You look so beautiful today, mom, you look like an angel”. I live for these sentences. And I live for her love, the pure, noble, uncompromising love. Because I know she loves me with all of my flaws, even when I’m not in the best mood and the mornings become difficult, a race against time, a struggle with all the responsibilities that mount on top of me. Perhaps you’re also a mother, perhaps you’re not, or it’s all still waiting for you. I wanted to write a piece about love, because it was just Valentine’s day, and Mother’s day is around the corner. And because love is a driving force that builds bridges, moves walls and finds a way, where we can see none. Love is everything, so I thought about it and it really isn’t hard for me to write about feelings and about how they’re the only thing that really matters. At the end of the day, at the end of life not much is left, perhaps a good relationship, memories, smiles, vacations at the seaside, hands and bodies touching, and raising children, if we’re so lucky. There are many reasons to become parents, and many against, to continue to live freely, with fewer responsibilities and a carefree mind, at least when we’re on vacation; so we don’t have to worry about the child falling in water or hurting themselves at the beach; just a good book in hand and a wide brimmed hat for some stylish shade.

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

What I can say for myself is that without my child, I would never have found out, how far love can reach, how big and ethereal it can be, like a forest fairy surprising you with her fairy dust, sprinkling you with passion and joy, most often when you least expect it. You have no idea how hard I cried when Sofia lost her first tooth, and then she moved me again in the morning when she was so quick to check, what the Tooth Fairy brought her, and solemnly shared with me that she’d seen her that night. Her magical smile that can so easily turn into a loud laughter is all I need when the world is taking a wrong turn and I can feel disappointment of other adults and start thinking I’m not entirely made for this world. Or perhaps I just missed the time period, who knows. And my love for her starts pouring out of me, when I see her lying sleepily in my bed, and first she seems so small, then bigger, almost a young woman with large hands and little feet that keep growing larger every day. And I think that maybe she’ll be a size 9.5 and that I’ll be happy to lend her all of my sandals so that my abundant collection will get another sense of purpose, that is, if it doesn’t change until then.

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

It’s also love that with her I get to do something for the first time and to me the phrase “for the first time” is infinitely enchanted, magical, because it didn’t really exist until now, and I felt like I know everything and everyone, but with her I realised I’m actually fragile and imperfect, a woman who can be wrong, and I have to say “I don’t know” quite often. But she forgives me and even when her questions such as “How did the first person come to exist? I understand that a couple had children, but where did the couple come from?” leave me with my mouth open and I think to myself, whether she also thinks I’m imperfect, which only lasts for about a second, because she instantly makes me feel better with her little, clear and pure intelligence: “It’s a good question, isn’t it? We’ll have to check it out in a book”. However, as a mother, I haven’t yet let her know that there are some questions in life you cannot find answers to in books, for you often have to let things go without getting the answer, and sometimes an answer is hidden deep within us and we have to try and find it.

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

Photo and make up: Biljana Babic for Baci Perugina, chocolates with a love note

I love her little arms around my neck, when she hangs onto me like a tick and I pretend she doesn’t weigh 48 pounds, but only 6, just like when she was so incredibly small and light and life got new meaning. With her inside my body, and me a part of her, forever intertwined, forever together. That’s right, my darlings, this year my Valentine’s and Mother’s day writing is dedicated to her and to me in part, because I know that everything begins and ends with one’s love for themselves, with accepting ourselves with every possible flaw, and not only forgive ourselves once, but a million times.