It occurred to me last summer, while slathering my child from head to toe with diaper rash cream, summoning every ounce of determination I could muster to rub the white paste into her sweetly resistant skin, that motherhood didn’t look much like I envisioned it would.
Come to think of it, it doesn’t smell much like I had planned, either.
Operative word here being, “planned”.
Please try to stifle your laughter. Thankyouverymuch.
{In my defense…the diaper rash cream bottle looked identical to the sunscreen bottle, except for the ridiculously small script that whispered their difference}.
Planning has always been my specialty. I’ve been an avid magazine reader for as long as I can recall; mentally inserting myself into the perfectly coiffed images…smiley, skinny and freshly showered to boot. Over the past few years, it is parenting magazines that have crowded my mailbox and littered my coffee table. As I poured over the images of immaculately {not to mention, stylishly} dressed kids with their gorgeous, perfectly manicured moms, I started to realize how, well…unrealistic my image of motherhood had become.
If this is what motherhood looked like {or smelled like… scratch & sniff perfume inserts, anyone?}, I was falling desperately – and consistently – short of the mark.
I had grandiose plans to claim my position as the most fun-loving, patient, creative, organically inclined, stylishly clad super-mom on the block.
You know her…the one all the other moms secretly strive to be like, and yet without fail struggle to relate to.
My drive to ascertain mommy perfection was not lost on those around me. I put on a good show at first, but was eventually stepping on toes, alienating the less-driven, and wreaking relational havoc as I judged and compared my way along in my exhausting mission to become Super-mom {insert super-hero theme music here}.
And still, “she” eluded me.
It has only been recently…as I’ve found myself singing frantic love-songs to the coffee pot in the hopes it will inspire a faster, stronger brew, and as I find myself emitting ugly, guttural sobs as I drag my mucous-streaked, sweatpant-enclad rear-end to the room of a snot-encrusted babe for the 537th time in one night…that I have realized “she” doesn’t exist.
She’s a mirage; elusive to those who strive to be her, discouraging to those who endure the performance.
Motherhood has been a crash course in humility and self-sacrifice, an adventure in processing unmet expectations and hunting down misplaced libido, the perfect pot for brewing a hearty sense-of-humor amidst chaos, while making peace with my fried-eggs-on-hinges, less supple silhouette.
And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I have found that it is in between the growing mountain of dirty laundry and the beautifully intimate moments of heart-nakedness and unexpected kisses…where the brain-numbing intensity of parenthood collides with the breath-taking melody of motherhood…that I find myself face-to-face with one of the most exquisite dimensions of my world: the symphony of the mom-life.
Of course there are low notes. And while there are times I’m quite certain this is all being performed in the wrong key {or at least the wrong household}, I’m learning to not just survive, but to thrive, amidst the tension of high and low, choosing rather to look for the gold within the {plentiful} dirt, and attempting to be still long enough to truly listen.
Listen to the exquisite harmony that is produced, not when everyone plays the same note, but when we allow ourselves to play the perfectly imperfect music our lives create when surrendered to the season we’re in.
So fare thee well, super-mom mafia.
Hello, beautifully messy momma-life, I’m delighted to have met you.
