Motherhood is LOVE. Love like you have never known. All consuming, Obsessive kind of love. Love that will keep you trapped under the weight of a newborn body, voluntarily paralyzed for hours on end as the smell of their breath is so intoxicating breathing them in becomes the sweetest addiction. Its a scary love. A love so fragile, so deep you know it could break and some days it will. A love so pure, so new, you wonder where it came from. Yes you have loved before but never like this. A love that teaches you to love yourself more because this little bundle of love is an extension of you.
Motherhood is JOY. Who new that the first hint of a smile could send your heart soaring. And those baby giggles... I swear if I could bottle them up I'd save them for every sad occasion and the rest of my days would be filled with nothing but joy. A joy that trumps every wonderful thing that has ever happened in your life. Joy so big it came make your heart burst. And here is the tricky part a bursting heart feels a lot like a breaking heart because you know these joyful moments will come to pass. The years slip through your fingers and you find yourself wanting to stop time. To stay in the joy. Of course their is more joy ahead but not like the one you experience before you have to share them with the world.
Motherhood is LONELY. Yes. Lonely. It is long nights, dark rooms, quietly rocking, and silently praying for sleep. It's an overwhelming flood of emotions. And it takes awhile to figure out how to keep them at bay. It is days spent alone. With your baby. But alone. It's conversations with yourself and lifetime movies during naps. It's a time that oddly tests your friendship and does away with some. Eventually you get your life back in order. Showering feels possible. You venture out and you meet new friends. Ones that have babies the same age and at the same stage and they get you. Those moms make life less lonely. They become your tribe, after all it does take a village.
Motherhood is MESSY. Oh. So. Messy. And I am not just talking about your family room floor that is covered in toys and binkies. Life with kids is messy. There is marker on the walls, scratches on the table, dishes in the sink, and on going battle with yourself to get it together. I mean everyone has figured this mothering thing out why can't I. I'm a hot mess! I live in leggings and cant remember for the life of me that today was blue shirt day. Does rotten food off the car floor count as something show and tell worthy cause I forgot about that too and that's really all I got at the moment. I am an emotional mess. No one told me motherhood was spending the rest of your life wondering if your doing enough, too much? Am I doing it right? Was telling him to just punch that kid in the face the next time he makes fun of you really the best advice?
Motherhood is HEARTACHE. Motherhood can mean loss. It shouldn't. Ever. But sometimes it does. For me part of this journey was a miscarriage. For others it is the loss of child. And when it comes to this I wont speak for any other mother. But for me... the heartache is indescribable. It's driving in the car alone and suddenly wondering what that baby would have looked like? What your family would be like if they were here. It a sadness that I feel like I own. One that sneaks out of tears in my eyes when I least expect it. Its a heartache that I wish I knew nothing of and at the same time don't want to let go. Which is hard to explain but that emptiness is where a baby once grew and I don't want to leave that behind. So I take with me because that little love is still very much one of my babies.
(wipes tears away)
Motherhood is FUN. It is so much fun. If you love feeling insane its a blast! Just kidding.. kind of. Being a mom is a second chance, at life. A second chance to experience all the fun you had as a kid that maybe you took for granted. Its a second chance to believe in fairytales and wait up for Santa. Its playing in the snow and splashing in the ocean. Its forgetting yourself, dancing like no one is watching and not caring if they are. Its hanging out in blanket forts on rainy days and forgetting that Trump is president and the world is going to shit.
Motherhood is all of this and so much more. It is also realizing your mother is a real life super hero and you should probably stop what your doing, and call her to say thank you... for giving you everything... including herself!
Happy Mother's Day
