Life as a mother feels a whole lot like just busy emotions.
Catching every single ball as it drops and shouldering every ounce of everyone else’s world. Keep it spinning, keep it spinning.
Praying that everything we’re doing, all the words we are selecting are helping them flourish.
Praying they only carry the intentional words with them for all the days of their lives to help them know just how precious and powerful they are, and praying that all our shortcomings don’t shape parts of who they will become.
Life as a mother is painful because we care so much. It is loving someone so much that the idea of anything or anyone harming them physically hurts you. Your chest aches and your entire soul seems to ball up in revolt, settling in the very pit of your stomach.
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Sometimes it is the little things we fear, like them running too fast through the park and skinning a knee. Sometimes it is the big, dark scary kind—the kind that keeps you up at night and will have you stepping in their rooms at 2 a.m. just to check that they are OK, no matter how old they get. The kind you read about happening to another woman’s child that causes you to sob and pray harder than you ever have because just that glimpse of their pain rips you apart—for that child who could have been your own child and for that mother who is in the shoes no mother should ever have to wear. Motherhood will make an empath out of every last one of us.
Life as a mother is being a vessel that must always replenish itself.
There will always be some need to fill, some question to answer, and some problem that needs remedy—and you, dear mama, are the healer of all. Sometimes you feel checked out, burnt at both ends, and like there is no you left in that body. But you will juice every ounce of grit out of you to be everything to everyone. Sometimes we forget to feed our own souls. We know this is a crucial necessity but somedays that is easier said than done.
Some days life as a mother is like wearing a foreign skin, a skin that will grow so deep into your bones and diminish most of what was there before. Motherhood changes us at the cellular level. This change is important because it equips us to care about another person more deeply than we ever thought possible. Sometimes we need to shed the selfishness of our former selves in order to give all the love, patience, and nurturing required for appropriate child-rearing.
It is an amazing discovery to see just how capable we are.
Bringing whole people into this universe, oftentimes sustaining life from our mere milk, cradling tiny, swaddled babies in our arms at all hours of the night. We are truly incredible beings. Sometimes we wonder, despite everything we accomplish in the early months of motherhood if we are truly capable of doing this? Sometimes we wonder who we are now, besides a mother? Where is the girl/woman we were before this child? The body changes and all too often the hobbies, interests, passions dry up. Some parts of us go that we wish we could have held on to a little longer and all too often, women are too scared to admit that.
But why should we conceal the trenches of our journey? Sometimes we struggle with who we are independently or who we will be once they are grown and leave. This is a plight not many outsiders are aware of. There is nothing we will not sacrifice for our children because we just love them SO much but the blurry line between woman and mother can feel displaced.
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We experience so many fears and doubts, along with the joy and pride. We often try to make this all appear effortless, but motherhood is not that simple. The human experience of motherhood is drenched in blood, sweat, and tears. It is paved in baby giggles, toddler kisses, and big kid hugs that feel like they could take your breath away. It is watching your heart walk outside your body and praying that everything you’ve done is enough long after they grow up and start their own independent journeys.
We worry, we protect, we love, we answer, we sacrifice, endure, relish, and savor.
This is motherhood in all its entirety, and it is worth every single moment.