“I was driving up the hill that leads to our home the other day, thinking about my four kids, and I just started to cry.
Because you know…
Each one of them is struggling…
With something.
Something that I can probably blame on myself.
My lack of whatever.
My too much of whatever.
What I modeled.
What they absorbed from said modeling.
Too much helping.
Not enough just ‘being.’
People-pleasing.
Savior complexes.
Workaholism.
The ‘apple-doesn’t-fall-far-from-the-tree’ somethings.
As I dug a little deeper, it struck me that some of what they are struggling with has NOTHING to do with me.
NOT. A. DARN. THING.
It comes from the fact that they are humans in a human world filled with all the human things.
No one is not struggling.
No one’s life is up and to the right.
No one doesn’t feel the weight of the hard and the heavy.
And my precious kids are part of that fragile humanity, one that is scary and gorgeous and awful and holy and every last thing in between.
I thought when I had clarity in that moment that it wasn’t ALL. MY. FAULT., the tears would dry up and I would pull into my driveway a little lighter.
Instead, they flowed more freely and I had to stop and pull over.
Because this whole bringing into and trying to raise and watching our kids navigate this beautiful mess of the world that we ALL live in isn’t for the faint of heart.
It’s such a huge risk.
It needs so much bravery.
It requires being able to sit in the struggle and cry tears on your way up your hill in your car.
As I sat to the side of the curb in stunned silence, the salty drops navigating their way down to my chin before I wiped them away, I couldn’t help but think how so much of motherhood is done in the spaces where no one else is.
Where it’s just us. All by ourselves.
Sometimes crying.
Oftentimes praying.
All the time loving.
Not in the way we imagined at the start of it all.
But in ALL. THE. WAYS. that matter in the end.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Esther of Mom Of Bigs. You can follow her journey on Facebook and Instagram. Submit your story here, and be sure to subscribe to our best love stories here.
Read more stories about motherhood here:
I Hope She Knows How Hard I Try To Be A Good Mom
Your Life Did Not End When You Became A Mother—You Were Reborn
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