Motherhood...a lesson in trudging.

I never wanted to be a mother - a wife or a mother.  I was adamant that I did not want to be a wife and entertained the completely reckless belief that being a single mother was something good to choose.  Knowing what I know now, being a single parent is heroic.  But knowing what I knew then, my ideas about being a single mother were just ill informed, grandiose and stupid.  

I am currently being paged by my two year old daughter – she wants me to tuck her in…AGAIN! I swear tonight is an all time record – this is now the 5^th time that I have tucked her in. There aren't many people on this earth, save my children, that I would lovingly stop what I am doing, go to them and be nice. My husband surely would not get that treatment – admittedly maybe he should but he doesn't and isn't likely to. Even my own mother, whom I adore, would get some form of exasperation from me. And, on my not so good nights, so do the kids but tomorrow is Mother's Day so I am on my best motherly behavior.

Before I go any further, I need to own up to the fact that I find mothering very hard.  My time in the motherhood trenches has been not unlike mortal combat.  I still have days, perhaps weekly, that I would trade both my kids in for the mere promise of a day at the spa or Nordstroms.  Fortunately, those moments pass and I am able to return to the present and see that, for the most part, my life as a wife and mother is enjoyable and rewarding.

So tonight Grace got the better me - five times in a row!  This is a truly rare occurrence!  As a mom, I feel that I am frequently not up to the task.  That I have more bad days than good.  But tonight I feel blessed.  I do not mind the inconvenience of attending to her needs.  Tonight, in the moment, I am content with the life that I fell into and amazed at how far I have come - completely contrary to all my plans and ideas.  

I always thought of love and marriage to be a kind of trap - one that I should avoid - much like one avoids falling off 40 story building or down a mine trap.  Yet here I sit on my Temperpedic mattress in my suburban home, SUV in the driveway, two dogs at the foot of my bed, two kids sleeping or rather not sleeping upstairs, writing while I mindlessly watch hockey with my husband.  10 years ago, this image would have sent me on a self-indulgent spending spree at Nordstroms, so how is it that I sit here and can't imagine my life any other way?

The truth is that I don't have a clue. I am living the American dream – my former nightmare and I am content. I have all the trappings of modern life yet I do not feel trapped. Instead, I feel lucky…blessed even. Lucky that I got sober at 25, blessed that I didn't marry until 34, blessed that I spent my 20's and early 30's getting to know me, grateful for the brief but satisfyingly successful legal career, lucky that despite my advanced maternal age (35!) that I conceived and delivered two absolutely gorgeous, healthy children, lucky that since Logan's arrival I have been able to work from home and spend time with my children and witness childhood in progress. It is true that I am fortunate and my life miraculous.  However, the miracle is not that all of this has happened, it happens to lots of women everyday.  The miracle lies in that all that I have received, I never wanted yet somehow I have come to embrace, accept that this is all that I have ever needed.  For someone like me, wanting what you have is nothing short of a miracle.  Had someone told me 15 years ago that the life that I have today would be my fate, I would have surely jumped off of a very high bridge.  But today I am content and deeply grateful that I didn't get what I wanted. 

All of this was accomplished by not planning a thing. I, in fact, planned the opposite. I planned to be married to my career and maybe, if I felt like it, at 40 have a kid on my own so that I could hide from the thought that if I didn't choose to procreate that I was just selfish. Today, I feel deep gratitude that all my plans never came to pass. That somehow in the years between 25 and 34 the woman that would request to be resat at a restaurant if she was sat remotely near a small child has matured into a stay-at-home mom who loves her kids & husband. I even happily drove a minivan for a couple of years. (THE HORROR!) Unlike many other women I knew while pregnant, I didn't have a birthing plan or a coach or any idea about what I was getting myself into – I just knew that I had come this far just putting one foot in front of the other and didn't see any reason to change that way of being. When I look back at it all, I see that I am a trudger.  I move forward with purpose.  What I didn't know was that it was never my purpose.  I apparently have always answered to some higher purpose even in those moments that I have so talked myself into believing that my purpose is the right purpose.  So like becoming a lawyer, getting married and having kids, I just trudged along and tried to stay out of the way and let it happen.

Today I am so grateful. I love my kids – they are the best teachers I have ever had. But most of all I love who I have become because of my kids. They challenge me in ways that no other person on this earth can…or should for that matter. They demand from me that I am on the top of my game every day, day after day whether I feel like it or not. And they know they have me – they know that despite my rantings that I am not going anywhere without them. They make me want to dig deeper and work harder than I ever have worked for anything in my life. And believe me, working at getting sober was the most demanding and difficult thing that I ever took on, but it pales in comparison to motherhood. So on the eve of this hallmark holiday that can become so meaningless and trite, I want to say thank you to my kids (and well my husband too after all he did play a part) for allowing me to trudge my way into motherhood and morphing into a person that I never wanted to be and probably wouldn't have liked.  Today, I see that I have never known what is in my best interest but if I trudge along, someone will show me the way!