No One Told Me

No one told me

 that these hearts would beat inside mine,

 forever at the same time.

And no one told me that my children's hearts

 would also

 beat outside my body

all at the same time, 

and get knocked around,

and hurt,

and bruised,

and cut,

and loved,

and I would feel all of that too...

...at the same time.

 

I just wasn't prepared for the "unpreparable" part...

the life lived as it happened part...

the unforeseen

minute by minute part,

as a mother.

I wasn't prepared to hear how all the other mothers

did this that and the other thing

and how good they were at it,

and how utterly miserably failing

I seemed to be.

 

Yep, I was unprepared

for the trenches of mothering,

the sleepless nights

that I've never outgrown,

the soothing when nothing soothed

the meals cooked that didn't fill

 the hunger

the ache

the pain

of childhood,

that mothering can't mend.

 

I was unprepared for the rush,

the scurry,

the strained words

when personalities don't meld,

unprepared for such different personalities

bound together as siblings.

 

I mean after all, I'm the mother.

Shouldn't they have a few bits and pieces of me,

 beating inside them?

Instead it is their heart beating in me.

 

I was unprepared for the bittersweet knowledge

 that instead of teaching them

so many life lessons

important life lessons

the bigger lesson learned

was for me

to become more

to learn more

to be more

 as their mother.

 

And in my learning and growing

I wasn't prepared for the times that silence

took precedence over words.

I wasn't prepared for the longing

for them to see

and know

my love.

 

Loving them

in all my mistakes

in all my failures

in all the unpreparedness

of being a mother

in living life 

the best I knew how

every single minute

living each minute intentionally

purposefully,

and still messing up!

 

I'm flawed.

They are flawed.

But we are bound

and I've got their  heart

right here inside my unprepared self

because I'm

their mother.

 

And to think...no one told me!

 

 

If you would like to see a couple of my other thoughts on mothering you can read about that here and  if you never read another word on this blog, please encourage yourself here.

 

But most of all I would love to hear a mothering story or two from you, because you are just that awesome!