It’s the day after Mother’s Day.
The flowers are starting to die. The cards are thrown all over the living room floor with the juice cups and Pop Tart crumbs. We are back to running the daily grind of Motherhood for another 365 days until our next day of praise.
When I decided to become a mother 10 years ago, the life I have now is certainly not the life I had pictured. No one really prepares you for the reality of it. I mean, it is wonderful at times but the simple truth of it is, it sucks the majority of the time.
No one sits you down and really lays it on the line. There’s no one on one discussions about how you may not sleep an entire night for nearly three years or that your child will not be like those cookie cutter kids your friends have. You know the ones, the ones whose hair is always perfect and they never get dirty? Or the ones who never throw a temper tantrum? Or doesn’t have problems in school? Or always gets along with the other kids?
And even if they had told me all of this, would I had listened? Probably not, all I could think about was fat, dimpled baby cheeks that smelled like baby lotion. AWWWHHH!!!
I definetly wasn’t thinking of colicky babies and soured formula.
Motherhood was an adjustment for me.
I was used to doing as I pleased, when I pleased, where I pleased. I think it’s a problem a lot of women of my generation have with motherhood. We grow up, go to college, start a career, get married. Then after we have somewhat found ourselves and gotten used to our independence, we throw a baby in the mix and expect things to be the same. Well, it’s never the same. NEVER!!
My mother and her generation tended to marry and have children when they were younger, found careers after the children were older, moved the children out to college and then start lives of their own. I think that isn’t such a bad idea. How can you miss something you’ve never experienced?
Not that I regret having my children when I was older because I believe I was a lot more patient, more financially stable, more grounded. However, I will be 53 when my youngest leaves for college. I wonder will I still have anything left for me? Or will I be so exhausted by the daily grind of motherhood that I will take to the bed and sleep for the next 20 years?
I have a feeling at that point I will be so intertwined in my children’s life that I won’t be able to cut the apron strings and let them go. I’ve always said that I won’t be one of the “empty nest” mother’s but I probably will be eating those words. For one thing, Ella will more than likely still be sleeping in our bed and Rachel will refuse to move out.
Even though Motherhood literally drives me crazy on a daily basis and I question my sanity frequently, I don’t know who I am anymore without them.
Maybe that’s what Motherhood is all about.
