The losing and finding of all the pieces has been this motherhood journey for me. I’ve lost the sideline dreams of a career of some sort (for now, you know) and I’ve found this perpetual challenge of walking alongside my munchkins.
Sitting with their tired tantrums and wishing I knew exactly the right way to end the power struggles or simply begin the happier mama moments that make life work well around here.
I’ve lost some inhibitions and gained others. I’ve lost the perspective of a childless person and perpetually think in relationships now.
It’s a circled strand of family and friends and time and giving and taking as we all support each other a little more carefully here.
We feel the fragile moments of our hours and theirs a little more easily.
And we know just how hard it is when you let someone be as close to you as your children.
I lose my own self a little bit. I’m not so much my own person as I am their person, even in these quiet hours of after-bedtime I am thinking through the art and lens of mothering well.
But somehow that’s not a loss actually. The things I lost were less than this. And this is greater.
I find myself here in motherhood. I mother, I write, I carry close, I make cookies and rolls and dole out graham crackers by the sleeve.
But I am still myself even here in this overwhelming mama life.
I’ve just lost some of the unimportant pieces and gained some more lovely ones.
Erika Shirk 
Love this, Erika, and I can relate. Before what has become terminal illness took me out of the workforce, I was a very different person, one with clearly defined and specific goals. Tangible ones.
But then my wife had to step out and restart her career, and I am at home with the rescued dogs who’ve found a forever home here. I’m no longer able to leave the property except in dire necessity – hurts too much to ride in a car – and so they’ve got me 24/7.
And they have taught me about priorities, such as…it’s more important to watch a DVD with a new puppy sleeping in my lap than to work on the next book I will never complete.
It’s more important to sit with an older dog who is sleeping in the sun than to try to find an agent.
It is more important to live life than to plan it.
#1 at FMF this week.
http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2016/06/your-dying-spouse-169-hooks-to-future.html
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Great piece! I can definitely relate. :)
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Beautiful picture of you and your kids! Yes, I relate to your sense of loss and gain as well- it is such an unexpected experience, and there are things to mourn but so much to celebrate in the deepening experience of what it means to be alive.
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Beautiful, beautiful piece. Dying to self…epitomized in these words: “But somehow that’s not a loss actually. The things I lost were less than this. And this is greater.” I truly think Christ grows our hearts through motherhood. Thank you for reminding me of this.
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