A Season of Motherhood

I had breakfast with a new friend.  She is younger than I.  She has little ones still running about her feet.  She treated me to a trendy breakfast cafe ... I paid her back by listening to her heart.

As she sat across from the table from me, sharing her struggles as a young Momma, I saw myself in her eyes.  It doesn't seem that long ago when I longed to sit across from a table from anyone who would listen to me ... or my heart.  Motherhood comes with no formal training.  We are thrown into care taking while having little time to care for ourselves.  It often feels mundane.  It often feels draining.  It often feels as if we are invisible.  Yet ... it is only a season.

My sitting in a cozy living room on a snow day while one daughter is living independently from me at college, one is hiding out in her teenage cave doing her own thing and one is amazed that I'm allowing her to watch so much t.v. is proof enough that these days of what seems like endless work are only temporary trappings.  Don't let them take you captive to thinking this is as good as it gets.  It gets better.  But "better" is only in the eye of the beholder.

"Better" used to mean everyone could cut up their own food.  Now they cook for their friends at college and ask me for advice on the finer elements of preparing the perfect spaghetti sauce.  I am only a spectator.

"Better" used to mean they would leave me alone for one minutes peace.  Now I go the entire day with no one to interrupt my thoughts.  They are all in school.  I have all the alone time I want.

"Better" used to mean someone undoing all my creativity on our Christmas tree in an effort to express their own personal style.  What I wouldn't give for someone to help "undecorate" the tree now.

Motherhood changes and morphs as our children grow.  What we do during those frenzied years help build the foundation for what they will need us for during the "better" years.  At 3, she needed me to take the time to notice they way she hung an Angel near the top of the tree.  At 18, she needs me to listen to what she feels is her purpose in life.  If I hadn't taken the time at 3 ... she wouldn't be coming to  me all these years later.

Cheer up, young Mommas!  These days are just a fleeting season that you WILL look back on fondly.  It may not seem like it now.  Laundry is waiting.  Children are crying.  Husbands need you.  Friends misunderstand you.  "Better" waits just around the corner.  Make good use of these frenzied years.  One day you will be the one sitting in my shoes dishing out the same advice to another one of our kind that finds herself in the shoes you now occupy.

It's a cycle ... make it a beautiful journey,
christina