Dear Mama,
I see you there, questioning if you are enough. I see you when someone tells you you’re doing “a great job”, wondering am I though? Am I really?
I see you taking your very worst moments and putting them on a pedestal above all the rest. I see you silently believing you are the only one who struggles to pull this all off.
It isn’t true my friend. If you hear nothing else, hear this...
We are all just learning as we go, we are doing our best, and we are making mistakes...this is motherhood.
Sometimes we are going to lose our cool. Like when I held the tablet out the car window and threatened to let it break into one million pieces if EVERYONE DIDN’T LISTEN UP RIGHT NOW. I scared them so badly that then I spent 45 minutes comforting them.
I’m going to call this bonding.
Somedays we might not want anyone to touch us. We won’t want them to tap our face, or jump on our back, or caress our cheek tenderly. We won’t want to share our skin AT ALL on that day, and then we might wonder if Dog the Bounty Hunter is more maternal than us.
Sometimes there’s going to be a thing “that good moms do” that we don’t want to do. Like crafts for example. Mostly I would rather light my own hair on fire than do a craft.
Sometimes we will want to escape from them. We will want to go somewhere without questions or sticky hands or crumbs. We will want to run and run and run and hopefully end up somewhere that has wine and back massages. If not, then Target will also work.
Sometimes we are going to feel more tired than loving. Like when my kids touch everything in a public restroom and I wonder if it is kosher to use hand sanitizer on their entire body.
Sometimes we will spend a whole day just saying, “I just said DON’T do that!”
The thing is…
Sometimes we are just going to show up without any warm feelings, or nice thoughts, and it will still be love.
It will be an incredibly strong and resilient kind of love. It will be a mom kind of love.
Sometimes we are going to clean a disgusting toilet while also having an identity crisis (WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH MY LIFE) and it will be love.
Sometimes we are going to tell them “no” and they will not act loved. They will act very very mad, and neglected, but it will still be love.
Sometimes we are going to cry in our pillow at night wondering if we are doing a good enough job…and it will be love.
Our love is often unseen and unsung, but it is real and true and beautiful.
I don’t care what your day was like today. I don’t care if you lost your temper or you never put on a bra or if you didn’t get out of bed…you are doing a great job. I SEE YOU. I see you putting bandaids on invisible owies and I see you microwaving quesadillas when you are long past running out of steam. I SEE YOU. I see you singing one last bedtime song when all you want to do is eat an entire Toblerone alone in the bath. I SEE YOU.
I also see that sometimes you don’t sing that last song. That’s OKAY too.
I hope you feel proud of the mom that you are. Not the mom you might be one day, not the one you wish you were, but the mom that you are.
Our kids are not comparing us to a supermom they saw on Facebook or Pinterest. They aren’t wishing we were someone else. They aren’t hoping that one day we will get it together and be more organized, and they aren’t embarrassed that we haven’t done laundry in a couple weeks.
Let’s stop wishing we were someone else. Let’s stop wishing for different strengths and gifts and be the moms that we already are. Crafts aren’t my jam. So be it.
My friend, I SEE YOU. I see you for the unseen and you’re doing amazing.
We are in this together.
XOXO
Jess
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