Motherhood - A Rollercoaster Ride

Making the decision to have children is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Motherhood for me has been like a roller coaster. It involves the highest highest, as well as the lowest lows. I love my two gorgeous children and would willingly give my life for them. I am proud of their individuality, their achievements and their attempts. I delight in their hugs and affection, their humor and their laughter. From the time I first looked into their eyes, I was in love, deeply, totally and forever. There is nothing that these two can do that will stop me from loving them.

This level of love, I have found also has a flip side. I hurt when they hurt, and the arguments and harsh words can cut deep. After one particularly dispute filled with damaging allegations between my 10 year old and myself, I needed space to calm down and find the meaning to it all again. I questioned if I could continue, or if I had failed on this journey of motherhood.

Having one of your nearest and dearest, tell you that they hate you, that you suck as a mother and that they would rather have someone else for a parent. Well it is extremely painful. It makes you wonder your own worth and strength, as least that was my case.

So often it is the people who we love the most have the greatest power to hurt us. It is at this exact moment that we need to remember why we love them so much. To get past the pain they are inflicting and find the pain they are feeling. To stop thinking about yourself and start feeling with your heart.

I received a quote the other day, from the amazing Mahatma Gandhi, saying "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." I interpreted it as being, that you return hate for hate, then you not only lose sight of where you are going, of what is important as well as all that is good in the world. When you send out love you might get hurt and it won't stop the pain. What it does stop is the cycle that is so easy to spin out of control into a barrage of torment that doesn't stop when the words end. It turns it around with caring and understanding. This is an example of the power of love. It ends the pain and brings gratitude into the lives of all the people involved.

Motherhood - A Rollercoaster Ride

Why???

Why can't I be happy with my life? Why do I always feel there should be more? That there are things I'm missing out on?

I am loved and adored by the man I love. We have two beautiful, healthy, intelligent, independent children. We have a roof over our heads, food on the table. I have friends I can call on whenever I need them. I am on the brink of a career that doesn't seem like work because it's what I'm meant to be doing.

What is so wrong with me that I can't be satisfied with what I've got? What I've achieved? I'm grateful for all that I have. That's different from feeling happy and joyful. I miss the laughter, the spontaneity, the playfulness.

Why do I have this belief that motherhood is such a serious business? How can I change it so that it becomes a belief that marriage and motherhood is a game - something fun, playful, enjoyable, full of laughter and delight.

I know and appreciate that my life includes lots of love and affection. It just seems like such work and I get so frustrated because I feel that I've lost my own identity other than wife and mother. I'm not sure who "I" am anymore.

Why???