#MOMAZING

A little over eight years ago I became a mom for the first time to a beautiful baby girl. When I look back at the very beginning of my motherhood journey I still see it with these rose colored glasses of pure bliss. Between my maternity leave and summer vacation as a teacher I had about six months at home with her and then I went back to work full time including coaching a Fall sport. I had always been a list checker, sometimes over achiever, occasional perfectionist so I tackled motherhood the same way. At first I didn’t really understand what all the fuss about it being so hard was all about. I had this. I was a rock star at this whole career momma thing.

So two and half years later we added baby #2, another precious baby girl. Except she was colic, I had a two year older toddler, a full time career that I just couldn’t give the same dedication to anymore, and we were in the process of moving and it all started to unravel.  The pressure to succeed, to do well was like nothing I’d ever experienced, even more than as a pitcher with a full count and the bases loaded. I struggled. Like the stand in the shower and just sob in frustration kind of struggle or the step outside of your house to escape to just take deep breaths before you lost your shit on somebody. I made mistakes. I failed. I let motherhood defeat me, and I hated myself for it. But I remember one day when I was having a rough day and my then four year old told me she loved me even when I was mad and upset that I truly started to understand how differently  they saw us than we saw ourselves.
 

This struggling and feeling like I was failing wasn’t what I envisioned in my successful idealism of balancing life, career, and motherhood. It was like I had gone from this graceful masterful trapeze artist that suddenly lost her balance as the crowd waited in hushed tones to see if I’d regain my footing. Whereas everyone else seemed to still be that graceful trapeze artist as they navigated the trenches of motherhood here I was the clown of my own circus show of motherhood trying to juggle way too many balls in the air. Just as all the things that go up must come down, it all crashed around me. After a year I final spoke to a Dr. Though I believe part of my problem was post partum depression by the time I sought help my second daughter was well over a year old and they actually labeled my depression as a symptom to a thyroid disorder they found that I had.

But it was at that time when I was struggling the most with this motherhood thing that I started to write.  My expectations of myself, motherhood, and even life in general was at conflict with my realities. I had to separate and recognize the difference between those two or I was going to drown in despair in the trenches of motherhood, and that's where I started to write. I wasn’t going to ace everything or be perfect and flawless at everything. I was going to fail, I was going to fall down, people were going to be unhappy with me. I was going to struggle on this journey of motherhood, adulthood, and life in general at times and that was okay. I had to give myself permission for that to be okay.

When we become mothers we are remade. Motherhood I've come to see is the journey from the girl we were to the woman we become. We will never be the same person we were. We evolve and change as we adapt to this most important profound role of our lives. Sometimes we get a little lost on our way.  As I taught students by day as they navigated their own search for self journey through the trying years of adolescence I navigated my own journey at night through my writing as I searched for this new woman that I now was as a mother of two.

Here’s what I learned as I wrote away about the highs and lows of being a mom and balancing life. Searching for perfection is a falsehood that steals our joy. I love the internet and social media. We now have the “internet” to tell us all the ways we are doing this motherhood thing wrong, all the ways we aren’t “enough”, all the ways we need to change to be better. This was peer pressure was greater than I remember from the adolescent days of high school! It may seem like everyone is great at everything but really we’re all just great at different things. We each need to find our uniqueness as a mom and embrace it! I learned I was enough. You are enough. We must love ourselves on the good days and love ourselves even more on the hard days, ladies.

My sisters and I were athletes growing up and our Dad when we would get down on our capabilities to win a game would tell us to get out of our head. I still find that to be so true today in motherhood. Due to depression after the second and then two miscarriages leading up to my third child I have to remind myself of this often. Our doubt lives there and it waits for us to struggle or a threat of failure to taunt us, stealing our confidence. About six months after my third child, our son, was born I found myself sitting in a doctor’s office this time diagnosed with post partum depression.

Even though I have loved to write since I was a child I never dreamed writing about the journey of motherhood or parenting would be my writing platform, but it was the community that formed about my writing that keeps me here because we need each other. To  talk to other women about loving themselves, embracing their flaws, and finding the beauty in motherhood and life on the tough days is a great reason to keep writing which is why I love that Chicken Soup gave me the opportunity to write for them. Chicken Soup stands for community and togetherness. They promote not just accepting and loving one another but ourselves too.  The world desperately needs love right now. We need to love ourselves, love one another, love those that support us, and through all of that we will teach our children love and hopefully that will lead to a better future full of more love rather than hate.

 Three kids, two miscarriages, two depression episodes, yet a wonderful life of eight and half years into this parenthood thing I can stand here and yes validate for you that this is ridiculously hard. Some days I feel like all anyone notices-work, the husband, the kids-are all the things I’m doing wrong rather than any little thing I’m doing right.

But I can also validate for you that there is nothing better, more rewarding than this journey of motherhood we’re on right now. Their giggles, hugs, their own journeys and accomplishments will overwhelm our hearts. They are worth the hardships everyday. So for them we will stare down our failures, mistakes, and disappointments and not let them get the best of us. They give us more joy than we ever imagined possible. To watch our kids become their own people and see how they inspire us to be better each day is an amazing gift. They will inspire us but without our even realizing it we will inspire them too.

In this competitive digital era of mommy wars, pinterest wars, instagram and facebook highlight reels it's easy to get more bombarded with the criticism and self doubt than the unity we should have in this journey. But whether we’re the older mom that’s traveled these trenches of the early season of motherhood, the mom that gives so much of her time to the school and PTA, the mom juggling her career with kids, the fit or creative mom that throws herself into her passions and makes herself a priority despite it all there's something to admire in all of us. We are so dedicated to this role is so many different ways. We can recognize one another’s good deeds without it meaning any less of our own.

I find so many of you #momazing in life and motherhood so I challenge all of you to leave a note of encouragement and appreciation on another mom or woman's social media page and tell her why she's #momazing (don't forget the hash tag). Let her know she should continue to spread the #momazing love by doing the same to at least two other moms. We are as unique and as individual as mothers and women as our own children are from one another. We all bring something different to the story of motherhood. Allow yourself to inspire and be inspired by one another. Share the mom love and tell someone why she's #momazing!