Feb 27th 2011 Blog #? Confessions and dreams of a middle age woman
Today I learned another lesson about people… Accepting people for who they are and where they are at. The funny thing about it is that it seems easier to do with strangers than with our own family. Somehow the expectations are higher with our own flesh because… well … we expect that all the talking, loving, explaining, & growing would amount to something that is understandable. How can you love a kid so much and yet be cut to the quick by that same kid over something that seems so ridiculous.
You know what I struggle with Tania.. I struggle with being hurt by someone I deeply love.. someone who I think should know me better because they’ve been with me since day one… and when they hurt me I want to just cut them out. Say “get lost” don’t come around me any more… the loss of them seems somehow easier to deal with then the hurt of disappointment or rejection yet again.
With people outside of the realm of family, it seems easier to accept and allow for differences because… well they are strangers or new friends… we haven’t grown up with them, or raised them… the expectations are lower… so it seems easier to understand and accept.
I thought being a mom was going to be ... well... easy. If I did all the right things I would have 3 healthy adjusted kids who would conquer the world because they had been raised well. I thought that raising kids with values was straight forward. I thought 2 + 2 would always equal 4. Yet somehow the more I pour myself out into the lives of my kids the more I feel that I am losing. Losing heart. Losing sanity. Losing the closeness that seemed so easy at 1 and 6 and 12. It seemed so easy when I was deciding I wanted a family. I wanted kids. I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to share all the love I felt inside. Now it seems so much harder and I wonder why I wanted to be a mother. It is a life of sacrifice met with ‘your not doing enough’… ‘I’m not happy because…and it ends with some kind of let down that I’m doing’...
Ok.. I know this is all negative. This is all the worst side of motherhood. It is not what I was going to write about… it is just me pouring out what I am feeling instead of crying… I know tomorrow is new day and I will feel better... it's just how I am seeing things today.
"friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "what!you too? I thought I was the only one." cslewis
ReplyDeletethanks for your blog letter today suzy. i will be back tomorrow to stand shoulder to shoulder with you as we navigate mothering our children together. i love you...i love your honesty and authenticity and vulnerablity in your writing today. "When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly God is the electriciy that surges between them." I read that quote today, before I read this. I think it fits.
what i do know, and it's not alot most day is this...we are called to this mothering. we are equipped but not necessarily to parent alone. parenting has dark dark sides to it that we were not told about and wouldn't have believed anyhow right? and parenting doesn't end at that magical age of 18 either...it is a lifelong journey that seems to require change and flexibility and more wisdom that imaginable..it does indeed take a village to raise a child. i believe that with my whole heart. reaching out to other moms, grandmoms, wise mentors, for wisdom, grace, prayer, love, encouragement and perspective is a positive parenting strategy. perspective!we desperately need to be able to step back sometimes. we need each other. i love you.
I am just catching up with your blogs tonight, and this one touched me at my inner core. It is so hard to be a mom, often with unimaginable pain, and joy. The joy I expected, but not the pain. I don't know what I would do if I did not have faith in God, or a God who is faithful.
ReplyDeletethanks for your comment lisa, i agree we go into parenting expecting joy, which i have been blessed in abundance with. the pain, that is where i have to learn to see the joy as well. we are challenged to be joyful in all circumstances...i am still learning how to do that, what that looks like exactly...parenting is by far the most life changing ongoing hold me close to humility experience ever. i appreciate that i am not alone in the journey:)love ya!
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