What 'been there done that' really means

It's not really until you actually go through an experience that you get to know what really it entails.

Like, for example, unless someone real close to you has died, you never get to actually know what that sorrow is like. You can empathise with a friend who has lost a dear one, but there is still a barrier.You feel so lame once you really know what it is, compared to what you were thinking it was.

That's the same, I'm beginning to believe, with other life experiences as well.

Only when you've landed thud in a terrible sort of way, splitting your legs in the long jump pit at school, twisting your waist in an odd angle, do you know what thigh pain is all about.

Not until you've hurled abuses at your boss, who first hurled abuses at you across an open office space where everyone froze do you know what humiliation is all about.

Not until you've shat in Nature's garden on a hillside, surrounded by blood-sucking leeches crawling in upon you, with one mug of water precariously sitting on a stone near you, do you know what the comfort of home is like. Till then, I always thought, "What's the big deal about roughing it out?"

I always would think what the big deal was about becoming mothers. Everyone became a mother at some point in time, I assumed, by default. Motherhood also just happened by default and life would run its default course.

When I got married and a close cousin couldn't really participate in all the fun leading up to the wedding, saying she was busy with her five month old, I refused to believe her. I thought it was a silly excuse. It was only when I got invited out with a five month old in my arms, and was refusing to go most places, that i realised what it meant.

I was once shocked when a colleague said they never cooked at home. They simply ate out or ordered food in. Now I think they are very smart!

Every time i was refused a Sunday off at work because i was still single and dint need to have a family day, I fumed. What was the big deal about being married. Once I got married, I knew why that one day together was precious. But by then they denied me Sunday off saying, i didn't have a kid!! Now I know what that one bloody Sunday can do to your life. The ways of the world.

However much you think you know about some one's life and what they are going through, you are never even close to reality.

When someone says "My kid is ill" in office the next time, I'm going to have a lot more respect for them.

I mean, till i saw the blisters on Sonny Boy this week, i hadn't the foggiest notion what chicken pox looked like! I really hadn't bothered what to do in such a situation. Now I'm surfing the net, calling my aunts and friends, taking tips, making notes to myself.
Till Sonny Boy had torn through me and entered the world I couldn't really figure the big deal about labour and episiotomies. I mean, it was all this natural beautiful process, right?
Until i cleaned Sonny Boy's pee and poop minutes after few minutes in the initial three groggy months (after having decided to go all natural and use only cloth, no diapers), after his birth, motherhood was about pink toes, gurgles and smiles.

My cousin gave birth this morning to a baby girl. I'm overjoyed for her. But i also know what this gregarious beer and seafood loving girl is going to go through in the name of the traditional confinement, with very few foods "acceptable" and beer?? HAHA that would be blasphemy..... Because, I've been there done that.