i remember this well. napping with parker, my belly big with anders.
wondering how many more naps we’d have before anders arrived,
and how many naps we’d have after.
motherhood is both time consuming and thought consuming.
i find total joy and total sadness in it daily.
i want it to last forever and then i’m counting the minutes till nap time.
i want to see what they’re like when they grow up but i don’t want another birthday,
another milestone that pushes us further from the first time we met.
my heart both bursts and breaks a million times a day.
it is such a crazy head trip, isn’t it?
it is such a crazy head trip, isn’t it?
i shared this on instagram a couple weeks ago. i go through these periods of deep thought, and processing, and i guess i was (still am?) in one of those periods now. in fact, i probably have been for like… 10 years. i was just texting with a friend the other day, both of us feeling emotional about various things, when i wrote: motherhood has ruined me. let me elaborate. motherhood indeed has ruined me, but, i think, in the best way? it is the absolute best gig on god’s green earth and i wouldn’t change it for a hot second. but i now have this intense depth of emotion that is sometimes burdensome, beautiful, a gift, but also unbearable. hearing the news of a death of a young mother, watching a friend return home to her own little girl after being in afghanistan, imagining the day when my own home is empty of children… i feel these things on a different level than i used to.
on my best days, even the ordinary ones (especially the ordinary ones) where we pass time tickling and reading stories, and eating scrambled eggs together, i have this visceral longing of “please don’t let this ever end!” it is so good, so good, and i want it forever. knowing that it won’t, at least not in the way i experience it now, is truly hard to bear. motherhood brings me the most insane feelings of joy and love and i want to stick us all in a bubble far from all the pain of the world and just continue moving through our own special space in slow motion forever.
is that too much to ask?
i hope this is what heaven is like.
Awe, so sweet. So raw. So real. Motherhood is a crazy, twisty journey full of every emotion possible.
http://www.backwardsnhighheels.com
Yes to all of this.
Yes and yes.
Just burst into tears because these are the same things I feel every day all the time. It's nice to know that we aren't alone in the motherhood journey and share it with so many others.
xoxoxo
It is SO nice that we're not alone, you're right.
It's so comforting to read this and know that someone else experiences these feelings. It's kind of like premature, profound nostalgia, I think. It's emotionally draining at times, but I think that being aware of how fleeting it all is is a strength, as it allows you to really appreciate, even all the "mundane" things that ultimately mean so much.
Also! This made me think of a movie you need to see, if you haven't already: About Time. It touches on these types of feelings and thoughts.
Premature, profound nostalgia. Yes.
Yet another "YES" to your words. I feel the same. I was telling a dear friend the other day how my first child cracked open my heart and opened me up to a depth of feeling – both toward him and in general – that had not been there before. It amazed me; I was not prepared for that. I was prepared for the hard stuff – sleepless nights, endless feedings, etc. but I was not prepared for the JOY. And the hard stuff I found to be, for me, not hard. I had five years of infertility and maybe the flip side of it was that I didn't care about the hard stuff – I felt so lucky to even have him. ANYWAY. I digress. You nailed it – as usual. I don't want this to ever end. "This" meaning active mothering with small ones in the house (I have a kindergartner and a six-week-old infant whom we adopted five weeks ago). It breaks my heart daily and my heart is also so much more tender and open to both suffering and joy. It's good. YES, Bridget — it's ruined me … but in the best way! Thanks for articulating that.
Congratulations on your new little one!!
And thank you for this comment.
Your emotional posts about motherhood so succinctly express exactly how I feel, but so much better than I am able to express in my own words. Motherhood has also ruined me. I find myself crying randomly, thinking about how my son will one day live somewhere other than at home with me. I tried to read him Love You Forever this weekend and could not get through the book without fat tears streaming down my face and a full on ugly cry session – all the while he contentedly played with his wooden puzzles, showing me the chicken and farmer and cow. The mixed emotions that plague me day in and day out that are understood by mothers everywhere will never been understood by my husband, and that is okay, since through the sisterhood of motherhood, I feel understood by so many. Thank you for posting this. It really hit the nail on the head with how I am feeling lately.
Love You Forever is a surefire way to… fall apart!! I am quite sure that very scene has happened in this home more than once.
And it's true, what you said about husbands. I know they love their children fiercely but I don't think they'll ever totally get a mother's heart. It's so nice that we have fellow women in this life!
Thanks for this comment. So glad I'm not alone!
So beautiful, and yes, nothing else will ever make me as happy or as sad as this.
And I like that bubble, too, please.
So beautiful and so true. It is such an excruciating kind of love! I think I have never cried as much or been as happy as these last 6 months of having a daughter. So beautifully written. It was nice to run into you recently!!
As a new (ish! Really, where does the time go?) mother of an 8 month old, this so perfectly encapsulates how I feel. I've been very surprised by how often (from happiness), and when (a Subaru commercial) I cry now.
I found your blog when I was pregnant and I'm so glad I did! All of your posts on motherhood really resonate with me and how I feel about my little dude, more than anything else I've read.
"Motherhood has ruined me…in the best way"
I love this! I absolutely agree – it changes us in so many ways, doesn't it??? I feel like I'm just a hot mess most of the time, but I wouldn't change it for the world
"i hope this is what heaven is like." SOBS.
yes yes yes yes YES. all the things i want to verbalized every second of every day but i can't get my brain cells to process the feelings fast enough because it's just a whirlwind. i'm constantly thrilled and completely devastated at once that the incredible little things that are thrilling me won't stay exactly the same for forever and ever! i can't even superficially enjoy superficial things the same way i used to because i'm too wrapped up in the jillions of layers of worries and hopes and feelings of motherhood! ha. ruined for sure!!! but i absolutely LOVE it.
i completely get it!!
https://www.facebook.com/nicholenordeman/videos/1040640599336717/
I dare you to watch this and not cry. I am not a comment kinda girl, but this post hit home for me. I have a 17 month old and I want to freeze time. I enjoy your deeper thoughts on motherhood, I feel the same way, and it is refreshing to have someone write it in a better expression than I can.
I think you will enjoy that video.
I never understood this with my first 3 because my husband and I had plans to have a ginormous family and I was enjoying and loving their little stages, but making assumptions that there would be more of this! Then we experienced a loss after loss and my heart ached for those sweet baby moments.. Fast forward to this past glorious year with our fat sweet gift of a baby. Every single day, I am painfully happy and sad at the same time that he will never be this size or smell quite this way or scoot on his fat buns exactly in this way ever again.. So much emotion.. He is turning one year in May and I basically can't even.
so much emotion. and certainly even more when you know it's your last. thanks kathleen 🙂
And have you seen this sweet video? http://www.foreverymom.com/this-nichole-nordeman-slow-down-video-has-made-4-5-million-mamas-cry-in-just-3-days-breathtaking/?utm_content=buffer598c1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
i think i have to avoid watching that — i might be a teary mess all day if i watch!
Amen! I also think that our husbands don't totally understand or feel to this depth so it can feel somewhat "isolating." or is that just me?
not just you at all. i think they feel it on a very deep level that is unique to them, but i don't think it's the same visceral, heartbreaking level that a woman (and, i'm not sure all women, at that) feels it. i totally know what you mean.
agreed. totally!
Bridget, what an amazingly accurate and heartbreaking account of motherhood. Love your writing!