There are many seasons of motherhood. We all have a picture in our head how motherhood would be. Right?Congratulations you are a Mom! After 9 months of waiting your bundle of joy has arrived. Each one is small and helpless and needs you for everything! Infancy is over in what seems like a blink! You then watch them crawl and walk to independence. The older they get the less they need you, or think they do. Okay who signed me up for this? This is not how I pictured it would be! I am lost in what I picture and what is really happening. I certainly didn't think I would be battling an invisible illness. It is hard and exhausting plain and simple. Good news! I am told it doesn't get any easier. Hey wait! What? Hmmmmm.......I think I need to re-evaluate this contract or at least look at the fine print. Is there an instruction manual, because I feel like I am doing it all wrong? Is what I have done or didn't do already set in stone? How do I relate to these spirited and unique children? Where do I get the energy when it is gone before noon? Sometimes I feel like my family would be better off without me.
These emotions above have left me feeling bare and lost. Maybe I feel this way about being a Mother because life is slowing down. The leaves are changing and so am I. I love autumn and when the leaves start to fall. I enjoy strolls to delight my eyes with beautiful colors of red, yellow and orange.It does mean, however, that the season is about to change. I am not a big fan of the winter. I feel very much like a bare tree or a skeleton of my former mommy self. My leaves have been falling towards the negative side of things. Up until today I felt these feelings were a bad thing that somehow I was empty or dead inside. This theory led me to a interesting question. How do trees stay alive in the winter? I do not want to go into too much detail, but trees do several things to keep their living cells from freezing or dying. They go into a dormant state. So even though when all the leaves have fallen, you see the branches of a gnarled and twisted tree, there is amazing things happening inside. We cannot allow ourselves to freeze our hearts or be afraid of change. We should allow ourselves to become bare and vulnerable so we can see those branches of our character. We see who we really are and what we need to change. This dormancy is a time prepare for new growth.
I always thought that trees without leaves were ugly or even a little creepy. Now I see their beauty.We may loose our leaves one at a time or in big batches. It is no reason to worry. It is time to look inward. New leaves will grow back. We too can come back to hope and come back changed. Another observation worth mention here is, if you look at a tree it appears to be reaching toward the sky. No matter what our struggles we must always be reaching and trying to obtain the best life has to offer us. It does mean we have to try and not give up. It is easy to give up but takes thought and action to try.
"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven" Ecclesiastes 3:1
It is interesting to me that each time I write a post I am bearing my soul to you, my readers, that I usually end up with an idea or two by the end and feel uplifted. I want to really dig deep here and celebrate looking within myself as the air is more crisp and the vibrant yellow, oranges and red leaves fall softly to the ground. Knowing that it will produce leaves and fruit once again. I am excited about this project that just came to me. I am either going to buy a tree or draw one. Then, I am going to add a leaf for goals I accomplish or something that I have overcome. Later I can look back and see how much I have changed and it can be a reminder to embrace the changes. I hope it will make me feel better as a mother and to find a way to live my life through this illness. I do not like to feel like a failure or that I have nothing else to give. There is so much more for me to discover and embrace about these changes. You and I may have doubts and failures but we have to continue on despite them.What season are you in?
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