mothering

Happy Mother's Day.

A friend asked me the other day what I wanted to be when I was in high school. It was a good question.. the only thing I could think to say was a wife and a mother. It's true I guess. Growing up that's all I really could see myself being. Or at least it's all I saw myself wanting....

I guess you could say I thought it would be all roses, skittles and butterflies. All the time. I never thought that it wouldn't come easily. If you are new here or need a refresher..

Motherhood has not been an easy journey for me. It's been really difficult at times. I know I didn't have the "normal" start and having twins was different in it's own right.. but I 'm not sure it would have been "easier" had it been "normal". The feelings of failure were hot on my heels from day one and mixed with some terrible postpartum depression I was a marked woman.

I love my kids and I think we all do whether it's "easy" or not. I find simple joy in them daily. But it's also reality that for me it's not always butterflies or skittles. It's hard work. Being a mom is tiring, selfless, and ugly at times... I have a better appreciation of my own mother and can't even imagine how she loved us so selflessly. She has a big heart and her mansion in heaven is a bit bigger than most.

So as I get ready to take on motherhood again with a new little one I am filled with a small part of fear... but remaining hopeful that the lessons I have learned will have instilled strength inside of me. That remaining mentally healthy is my main goal that to take it easy on myself is the strategy I will cling too.

I was reading in a favorite book the other day and came across this.. I think I have shared it before.

"sometimes there's nothing inside you but echoes, and the water is so low, its left a line, a watermark that's cracking in the sun and you feel it may never rise, fear you will be left out way up high to dry, never to float weightless again. Sometimes all the words have gone up and flown away, leaving no trace but a frayed string or a broken piece of kite flapping wildly in the wind to remind you there was once something there but it got so broken and its too far gone you'll never find it. Sometimes you are an elm tree in winter, bare and black and frozen, just tangled lines reaching for the sky and all you can do is try to cast shadows and make silhouettes in the blue morning, bare and cold. Inside me is January. Inside me is a backyard full of old snow. Inside me is a long stretch of prairie road. I am wilting like the the plants on the windowsill. Inside me is a place where the sun won't reach. Inside me is a white walled room with no pictures or windows or chairs. Sometimes there's nothing to say, you just a need a summer's day to warm your skin, to make something right again."

I think I finally feel like a summer's day.. I think I finally feel ready to take on the dark, bleak places that have held me in residence for so long. I feel the water rising and the moon sparkling on the water... I'm on a raft now a big beautiful boat floating over the smooth glassy waters. It's about time..

Happy Mother's Day to those who hold children here on earth or in heaven or those who hold other's children and not yet their own. I salute you in your quest... whatever it looks like!