Today I have been a mother for 15 years.
Mothering as we have heard said a million times is the most challenging and most rewarding job in the world. Or as my middle son told me, “its not a job, you don’t get paid”.
“Good point”, I replied, “but it is hard work”.
In truth, if we are honest our children teach us more than we teach them.
They certainly offer us much opportunity to face our shadow, our patterning and our idealistic perfectionist in the mirror on the regular.
With each year of #parenting, I have failed my idealistic perfectionist a zillion times and have had to face the facts that she really is not very realistic or practical…so I am trying to teach her.
The #patterning, well, don’t get me started! Most days the fact that I am a pattern breaker in my family is a source of pride and focus, but there are many times I resent the role strongly.
Not the least of which, when I find myself bang in the middle of a pattern I was breaking.
So I am teaching my pattern breaker patience, this shit is #generational and you are one person.
Rome as they say was not build in a day (and we already established, I am not perfect, try as I might).
Lastly the good old #shadowself, I have really come to love this rebellious, intense teen like part of myself. Until she is thrust back into a dark night of the soul, not just her own problems to fret over but now the health and well being of her babies…oh the angst.
#Motherhood is not for the feint of heart, thing is, we usually only realize that when when we are bang in the thick of it.
Pre kids I imagined the milky smiles, the squidgy cuddles and me doing it perfectly, obviously.
I did imagine I may not enjoy the teen years, but they were a teenage number of years away so not worth worrying about.
Now here I am with a teen, a tween and...is 10 the new tween for girls? And if I am honest, yes it is hard at times, but each stage has had it's tough stuff.
And even more magic.
The responsibility of being, if for a short while a guardian of three beautiful souls is crushingly weighty and simultaneously fills me with the #blessed lightness of being.
The long and short of it is, that my kids more than being 'mine' have taught me more about me than I ever could of imagined.
My imperfection, my humanness, my shadow, failures, my determination, my depth for #love, my #courage, my #strength, my #vulnerability, my duty, my inner child, my inner teen, they have introduced me more fully into the mother in me.
She in truth was woken early in my childhood and took on the responsibility of parenting her little brother and sister. She dutifully before her time had the ability to respond (responsibility) and they needed her and so she happily did.
But she was not ready and much of the work being a mom in right timing has taught me, is to heal the mothering inner child and let her be a magical child.
I have a deep mother #archetype and she is compassionate, kind, gentle, loving and finally learning good healthy boundaries, and healthy loving conflict at the age of 44.
To my beautiful first born son on your birthday, Caleb, thank you for your gifts, too many to count. I am eternally grateful for your bold and kind energy and that you chose me.
To my middle man Zach, your intensity and sensitivity make me a better person through challenging me to be firm and kind, give space, hold space, and hold a line. I love you.
To my little Ella, to have a daughter is a gift indeed, and you are just a ray of light in every dark day, and even when you are a storm cloud, and 'know better than me', your wisdom is so well beyond your years I am just constantly in awe of you.
A mothers love is something we can find written in every heart, for we have all had a mother, known a mothering person, been a mother or mothered on some level.,
When I birthed them, through blood, sweat, tears and roars of pain, I had no idea what awaited me.
And as to the journey thus far, it has been more in every way than I could have imagined and I am excited to see what the next 15 years of mothering has to bless me with.
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