May 12th, 2016 → 5:57 am @ Lea // No Comments

“Momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth.”  – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

(Note:  “collied” means “dark,” and “in a spleen” means “in a flash”)

People have different views of motherhood.  Some say it is the best thing they ever did (my own mother used to say that), some say it is the hardest; I’ve seen studies that show that parents are less happy than people without children, and other studies that find that they are more fulfilled.  I think you simply can’t know until you are in the middle of it.  And I also think that the experience will be different for each person, as childhood is.  For me, motherhood has been a joy, though I will admit that it is more work than not.  The majority of my time spent in relation to my child is spent cleaning, reprimanding, organizing, trying to figure out what the hell is going on or what just happened.  There are times, in the midst of the chaos, when I wonder what I am doing.  But every morning when my son wakes up, the very first thing he does (before even going to the bathroom) is to find me and give me a very long, very extended hug.  Sometimes this morning hug lasts for a few minutes even!  And in the still quietness of the house, with my husband asleep in the bedroom and nothing making a sound but my son’s beating heart against my own, I think, this one moment makes it all worth it.  Literally.  It may seem odd that 60 seconds of pure joy are worth what is often 5 hours of thankless frustration later in the day, but I can’t explain it, it is.  When I hug my son in that brief morning moment, and he’s just all relaxed and warm and draped over me, the comfort is exquisite.  It is like we are one.