Diving In To Motherhood

I read this essay and thought about how I sometimes feel reluctant to fully embrace this motherhood thing, because it's temporary gig. They are going to grow up and leave, right? And even though that's 20 years from now, there's still an end in sight. I don't want my mothering days to come to an end and have nothing left of myself.

I worry that I will lose myself in it, because raising young children is an all-encompassing task. Twenty-four hour on call duty. Relentless and repetitive in the nursing and rocking and wiping up after so many messes. Most of what I do in a day is quickly undone, and it's easy to leave very little time to think of anything else.

For me to be happy with this, the way it is now, I have to dive in. I have to let myself be changed by this circumstance, by these babies, by this work. Yes, it's temporary, but it's a long temporary.