I feel often I don't know who I am. Mother? Knitter? Creative enthusiast? Lover? Friend? Cleaner and cook? How can I be all this at once and survive? I try to quiet all the interests in my heart and balance it with my to-do list but usually I end up a tangled mess who forgets to hug her husband hello when he returns in the evening. Hello husband. Would you like a sticky hug? Oh, and please hold this baby while I poop. Thank you.
Half of being a mom is living divided, torn in two. One part of you thanks God for the tiny hugs and wiggly, rambunctious toddler-hearts and the other part of you desperately wants to escape and not smell like day-old milk and dirty laundry. Just for one day. Or even an hour.
Motherhood is part worry and part fatigue. Part irritation and part pride. Part please-eat-your-vegetables and here-just-eat-this-donut-for-goodness-sake. Just eat something. Preferably green. And not playdough.
One part of you worries that something bad could happen at any moment and the other part just wants to get away so you can breathe. Because toddlers suck all the air out of the house with their never ending energy. Tragically, moms need air. Toddlers, I believe, thrive on trucks and dolls and Franklin the turtle movies.
Sometimes I feel fragmented in to a million pieces and not even sure how to feel. Because I am sensing/experiencing too much at once. And there is so much to be done and not enough time to do it in.
There are so many things to wipe, so many things to wash, so many emotions to feel and people to please and mess to organize and engagements to remember and friends to be friendly with; that I many times altogether lose sense of myself. Am I human? Do I breathe? I barely have time to remember who I am under the weight of being a mom.
Half of being a mom is being all mom, one hundred percent of the time. Holding anything back is impossible. They demand it all. God demands it all. And sometimes you might get to shower alone but often you don't and you just try to be glad you showered.
I've learned what the phrase "daily taking up your cross" means. I've learned to juggle. I've learned to try and at least understand my own feelings so they don't spill out of my mouth at the end of the day in anger. I try not to bury myself. Under rocks, you say? No, buried under the word Mother. Heaped up in regret and mental stress the weight is emotional and it makes all mothers weary with toil. We function on less sleep then convicts and criminals and are expected to complete all our assignments without error or complaint oh, and raise the next generation of humans.
You know, just the small stuff.
And that's only half of being a mother.
