I’m laying in bed at 11:45 pm. #CaliMae is tense and fighting against me as she is resisting sleep. Still, I hug her close to my body, breathing slow and deep, hoping that the feeling of my chest moving with every breath will help calm her. I get lost in the sound of a YouTube rain video. #CaliMae starts to slow her breath, melt her body into mine and drifts off to sleep. I have a million things to do, but I choose to just lay with her tightly wrapped in my arms. I feel peace.
I’m doing the dishes and #ClaraBelle is sitting on the other side of the counter eating a bowl of cereal, babbling a million miles per hour. I get lost in her excitement about a unicorn, and her bed and something pink (I didn't quite catch that one). Before I know it I'm scrubbing down the stove and cupboard doors, searching for more things to clean in the kitchen so I can just stay here listening to her and watching her pigtails bounce up and down when she gets excited. I'm in love.
I’m laying next to #OBoy while the girls are getting ready for bed. He is wrapped in my arms as we make up songs about trains. Then we touch the tips of our index fingers together as we say “BOOOOP!” and touch our foreheads together, our nightly ritual. He breaks into laughter with a big toothy grin and I can't help but pull him in closer, I just want to absorb this moment. Then he says “Mom sqeeeeeze me again”, we both laugh and squeeze each other. I feel happy.
I’m rushing around like a mad woman to get the house cleaned up so that when #LivyLu is on her dance zoom call, it looks like she has a super mom (admit it, you do it too). Just as the call is starting she hides behind me and says she doesn't want to do it, and then I'm caught on camera from a very unflattering angle. Eventually with a lot of pushing and coaxing she gets in front of the camera and quickly eases into her old dance routine. I sit on the couch and just marvel at the beautiful blond girl who is ear to ear smiles, dancing so gracefully and talking up a storm to her teacher. I created her. She's mine. I get to watch her grow every day and push her just a little more to become all that I believe she can become. I feel proud.
I'm quarantined with my best friend and four of my favorite little humans. Everyday I have snippets that just absolutely melt me. Yet everything else surrounding those perfect moments is hair pulling, count to three and breath to keep calm, “You’ve got to be kidding me” kind of days.
If I'm being honest quarantine has been rough. I’ve spent far too many days in bed. We have picked up take-out more times than I can count because I don't want to add to the stack of dishes in the sink that I keep pushing off. Adam pulled out clothes that I just folded for #CaliMae and there was dried granola all over it. I’m pretty sure I mixed up the dirty and clean laundry and just folded it all…. I’m just gonna let that go. I spend many days wandering lost, many days in tears and many days so frustrated because I feel trapped that I take it out on the kids. I yell over the littlest things and then become yet another puddle of tears.
Now I’m going to tell you the really really hard truth. If I had to spend the rest of my life only being a mother, I would go crazy.
Don't take this the wrong way. I LOVE my kids. I can't get enough of them. And even on the hardest of days I find myself dreaming of growing our family. But I think somewhere in the middle of pregnancy one and four I lost myself to motherhood, and quarantine is a big eye opener to that. I find myself every day relating to the movie “Where’d You Go Bernadette?” (have you seen it? It’s weird, nothing like I expected but yet so so good), wondering when am I going to have my big break through?
I don't have all the answers for finding balance in enjoying motherhood and yet filling one's self up (and I don't just mean having alone quiet time to rest and play, I mean really filling up your soul). I don't even have a game plan to kick myself out of this hole of depression I've dug myself so deeply into. However I do now have a testimony of finding self worth, and believing that I deserve just as much happiness as I try so hard to give to my children. Life is crazy and life is joyous, and those two emotions can coexist harmoniously so long as you have grounded yourself. Quarantine is difficult because we are all literally trapped inside endlessly waiting. It’s hard because life in so many ways has been halted to a stop; and if you are like me you are revving your engines just waiting for the green light so you can just start living by your rules again and not the rules of fear. (Seriously, im like a jar of bottled up anxiety.) But yet it’s also a time to put everything on hold so that I can experiment. I can break down and cry till all my emotions are so raw and out in the open that I can then find what is most important and then build me.
When I was recovering from my lowest point as a teen, I found myself at a psychiatrist's office one day. In just about every way I thought he was a complete quack and def not the right fit for me, but he did say one thing that really stood out. “Until you find who you are, you are just going to keep hitting these low spots.” I took that to heart and I found myself hobbies, I found goals and I found the man I wanted to build a life with. But now as I'm in a low spot again I'm realizing that I built a foundation for me to stand on, I discovered how I can release that tensed up anxiety, I found my support group and my greatest motivation, but I have not found me. And all these years I have just been avoiding that.
I’ve realized that I need to move forward. I need to create. I need real tangible progress that I have achieved with my own hands. I need to fill a part of me that has nothing to do with anyone else but my own happiness.
Being a homemaker is wonderful. Being a teacher, a friend, a listening ear, or working hard to provide for your family is everything. Being a parent is an amazing privilege. Being a child of God is a blessing and the greatest joy. It’s important to not forget who we are, and what makes up you.
I'm praying for y’all and excited for the day we can all be human again. I love you.
Now go love yourself.