I began reading the book…but didn’t finish….A Purpose Driven Life. I love the title. Should there be a book titled Purpose Driven Mothering? I haven’t had many lows in a long while. I am blessed with healthy children, a kind and loving husband, and a fairly easy life. I say easy because I don’t work outside my home, we live comfortably (more than comfortably), and we don’t struggle to meet the basic needs of our family. Nonetheless, I am struggling. I struggle everyday to mother with purpose. I have written about this before and find myself writing about it again.
These little men of mine are true gifts. I cannot put into words my understanding of the task at hand. The task of raising them and loving them. I sometimes miss the days right after they were born. When I could hold them, if I wanted, for hours and hours. I remember just staring at them in amazement and awe. How could this little guy really be…here? These days those moments feel like they were in a different lifetime. (This may also be why some women have more babies. But I digress!) These days I feel like I don’t have any answers. My brain knows that you can’t be a perfect mother, that kids are not perfect, and NO ONE has ALL the answers. I know that intellectually, but my heart does not feel that. I am desperate to do right by them. Although not logical, I take most of their shortcomings as personal failures. Again I know this in my head as crazy; it is my heart that has a hard time believing.
As the season changes here in Seattle, it has turned damp, gray, and bleak. At the moment, that is how I feel. The joyous, boisterous holidays are right around the corner. I know my spirits will lift. I know that in the weeks to come my boys will enter new phases, maybe ones I am better equipped to manage. I know that my life is good and that these boys are true treasures. I know that one day I will look back at THIS time and think about how simple and lovely my troubles were. I know these things in my head….I just need my heart to believe them as well.
My dear friend–you are so wonderful to have these worries. Your little boys are blessed to have a mother that worries about parenting them on a daily basis and takes her non-paid, non-thanked job so seriously. You are great at everything to attempt to do and mothering is no different. Give yourself some slack!!