Becoming Mother

That I am selfish?

That holding my sick baby for the entire night doesn’t feel that rewarding?

That for several months when my teaching load was light, I didn’t pick my daughter up from daycare until 5:30, even though I had finished everything for teaching and grading by 3:30

That I love my kids, but I’m at my best when I have a break from them

That some days are nothing but chores and work from sunup to sundown

That there are periods of several days in a row when the only thing that I get to “do for myself” is drink a cup of coffee in the quiet stillness in my cubicle before it’s time to teach

That I don’t like that

That I miss The Weekend

That I miss binge-watching TV for hours on end

That I wanted a child, but I didn’t want to be a “mom.”

(Does that make sense?)

That each day is a decision to live a spirit of humility and generosity (even though I sometimes want to be childish and self-centered)

That I constantly fail at this

That I lose my patience and yell

What if I told you that I’m not inherently great at mothering simply because I’m female?

That it’s a struggle to put the needs of others before me

That each day is a decision to let go of my desire to preserve my sleep, my time, my energy, my sanity

What if I told you that motherhood has made me more vulnerable than I have ever been my whole life?

That each day is a decision to draw my children close, rather than keeping them at arm’s length

because of my fear that they will sink their hooks so deeply into my being that they can unhinge me

What if I told you that I’ve grown two more chambers of my heart

And birth separated them from me

That they are now out there in the world, naive and not yet broken

And oh so exposed

That when they are crushed by the world, I will be too

What if I told you that before I became a mother, I thought that “moms” were minivans and bad pants and nonexistent sex lives?

That I thought that once I entered motherhood, it was all over

That once I became a mother, I might as well abandon anything that I wanted to do for myself for the rest of my life

And by that logic, I had to finish writing anything meaningful before I had any kids.

(Because they would just make it impossible to ever write again, right?)

What if I told you that before I gave birth, I had months of writer’s block

But once my daughter was born, I couldn’t stop writing.

That between naps and feedings and diaper changes, I wrote pages and pages and pages.

That sometimes I wrote at 3:00 a.m. after a feeding because I had another good idea

What if I told you that after I placed my time and energy and plans on the altar of motherhood

It gave me back far, far more precious gifts.

Strength.

Resiliency.

Wholehearted Love.

Joy.

Motherhood has knocked me down into the messy quagmire of life time and time again.

It has made me sob and ache and grovel and resent and rage.

But it has also made me a Badass.

It has made me skilled in the art of Forgiving

and Getting Back Up

and Moving On

Artistry credit: Courtney Blair, http://www.patterndaily.bigcartel.com