i would be the first to say i’m not anything special. i am just a mom. a wife. a daughter. a sister. a friend. i am trying to find my way thru the script of my life that was handed to me. it is not always what i wanted or thought it would be. the boxes i had put my expectations and dreams into have at this point been dismantled and destroyed. my hands are wrinkling. my eyes puffy and weary. my skin softer and looser where four lives grew within me. i am not youthful anymore, or at least i do not feel youthful.
yet, we are not the first to have to face life with many littles. it makes me think that i am not cut out for the job title of ‘mama.’ maybe it’s us. maybe we struggle because we are not cut out for the life of parents. but, that is a lie. my husband is a wonderful father. and i know that i am a good mama. some days.
these hard, long, tiring days are filled with whispers in my head of defeat and failure. simply put, it’s easy to believe a lie. there are so many reasons why i feel defeated, but many of them come with the territory of being a mother. our days are filled with so much repetition, correction, redundancy it can feel that we never make any progress. i recently told my husband it feels like we are in a giant pit trying to climb our way out to the day light and just like that someone will turn on a hose and the dirt becomes mud and we are buried up to our necks.
it’s easy to believe that’s all it will ever be. we love to see life in polaroids. yet, we don’t realize we are only seeing snapshots of a beautiful panorama. and it is full of ordinary days. these days that we have don’t have to be defeating. i don’t have to see my day, my children, myself as being failures. i must choose to see that in the beautiful simplicity of an ordinary day there is freedom from the feeling of defeat. this is an ordinary day. it is full of tantrums. full of rebellion, both in my heart and my children’s. it is full of laundry, dirty dishes, night time kisses, hugs and ‘hold me mama.’ it is full of fatigue, and crazy toddler energy. it is full of dirty floors, legos, princess crowns, and tears. it is an ordinary day and it is beautiful.
i am a boo-boo kisser and that makes me special. i am mama. and that makes me very special to four little people. the ordinary is special.
i am striving to see, thank, and relish in the beautiful ordinary of our life. i am striving not to feel that i am standing still while others are moving forward. constantly thrust back into the newborn stage while others have kids growing and moving on. fighting the feeling of being left behind. but to find gratitude for the lives i’ve been given charge over. to not mess this up, and have grace for the messes.
Amy Kneisler 