Monday, September 21, 2015

Oh, I'm Just Stretching

MONDAY MUSING

This weekend I have been feeling stretched.  I'm a mother of five kids, 10 years and under.  Mothers feel stretching of all kinds.  It begins with a stretching belly but the stretching never ends.  What kind of stretching am I talking about?
  • I want to feed my kids healthy food all the time but I have low cooking energy and limited funds.
  • I want my kids to solve their own problems but we’re late “so hurry up and let me help you already”!
  • I want them to do XYZ but that would eliminate unstructured creativity and discovery.
  • I want to sit down and read to them but dinner, homework, housework are calling.
  • I want them to take a cool class but I’d like to take a class too.
  • I want to read to them but I want to read to me too.
  • I want to give them a bath but I want one too.
  • I want to look put together but they need XYZ.
Motherhood is the ultimate stretch zone.  I want so much for them.  I want so much me.  And love is deeply intertwined in all this struggle.  I constantly battle dream vs reality, me vs them, want vs need.  All this stretching takes a toll.  My heart, body, mind, and soul all bear stretchmarks of motherhood.

I'm not saying that these stretchmarks are bad (I think they are usually good).  I'm not wishing for a different set of stretchmarks (you keep your whatever, I'll take mine).  I'm just making an observation.

I. Feel. Stretched.

How about you?

1 comment:

  1. So well-put, Abi. And I hear ya! Fun if we could find a way to look back and measure our growth, which is probably quite a bit as we nurture our babes over the years.

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