The woman at the duck pond is between 70 to75 years of age. Her white hair is shoulder length, bone straight, and with bangs reminiscent of a young girl. Her sneakers are black and chunky with Velcro straps. She’s an organic older adult—no plastic surgery, facelifts, or Botox. Her skin is pale, not tanned, and her hair is un-styled. Her body is like a soft, square pillow—no detectable waistline. Her clothes remind me of the pictures in the catalog my 90 year old Nana receives in the mail each month.

But as she sits on the bench and lifts her face towards the strength of the August sunlight, I can sense her contentment, even from across greenish pond where I clutch the baby stroller, holding my 14 month old daughter, her tiny Stride Rite-clad feet visible beyond the pliable sunshade. The woman’s legs fall slightly apart as she lets the relaxation of the late afternoon sink entirely in. Her eyes are closed and her head is tilted to one side, and I imagine that she has achieved that elusive notion of inner peace.

My daughter brings me immense joy. She has shown me things about myself I never knew existed. She’s soft and sweet and simple; she points to things she wants and laughs in earnest at the most random things. But she’s constantly with me. The only time I’m alone is when she’s sleeping—and usually that time is spent cleaning her messes. If I really need to complete a task I have to cage her—as in her crib or playpen where she howls for attention, and then won’t let me put her down once I’ve retrieved her to make up for the lost time.

Many people my age dread getting older. I yearn for it. I’m someone who thrives on “alone time.” I was a whimsical child, a pensive adolescent, and an intellectual young adult, and now I’m a mother of a toddler. Something doesn’t translate. I like to think. I like to ponder—as in sit-and-stare-at-the-wall ponder. I’m not someone who fears being alone; in fact, I long for solitude, and I learned very quickly that motherhood, especially the early years, utterly shatters that concept.

It seems as though motherhood is slowly taking my right to solitude back. I still find it in moments. I’ll notice a mesh of gnats swarming over a small stream and find the beauty in that. But a sudden whine from Jane will yank that away. Motherhood takes that serenity and swallows it whole.

I find myself wondering if that woman sitting on the bench with all the attitude of the Buddha is a mother. Was she where I am at one time? A lifetime ago? Did she lose sleep during the infant years? Break her back during the toddler years? Car pool and chaperone her way through the elementary school years? Argue away the teen years?

Has she lost her patience more times than she can count?

Has she ever privately fantasized about running away?

Has she ever begged God to help her make it through one more day?

Has she loved more than her heart could handle?

I don’t know why, but something tells me she has. True, she has mastered the matronly look, but it has more to do with the way she soaks up the solitude. She embraces it like she owns it, like she’s fought for it, like she’s earned it.

It may be decades before I get my solitude back. It seems the universe gives us the gift of freedom in our youth, but forces us to acquire it back if we chose to become parents. Of course the price of solitude is invaluable, if not lucrative—children, family, sacrifice and love—investments that ultimately lead us back to ourselves, only with more strength, more vitality, more wisdom, and more reason to drift proudly through each day, with no other purpose then to stare back at a life that we’ve conquered.