Sometimes I wish I never had kids. I mean that. There are days that I wish I had never even become a mother. I know I’m losing some of you already. But, please hear me out.
This is what I struggle with as plainly as I can state it: I didn’t bargain on loving this much. I didn’t know my heart could be full of so much love for another human. And I have four humans that I love this much!
I’m not sure what I was thinking. Yes, I always wanted to have a big family. I’m a nurturer to my core, and I knew I had a lot of love to give. I also cherished the idea of them always having each other.
Knowing that something could happen to my child is hard
But, this? Living with the knowledge that it would destroy me if something happened to them? Does my heart hurt whenever one of theirs hurts? No, I wasn’t banking on this.
I didn’t realize that my heart could hold this much love in it and because of that, ache so desperately when their heart ached. In a single day, there could be friendship issues, relationship woes, school stresses, work problems, disappointment with their chosen sports or all of the above.
I wish I could say that I take all of that in stride; I don’t. I’m an extremely sensitive and empathetic person. I absorb their feelings like a sponge.
I remember like it was yesterday when my high school boyfriend and I broke up. The pain was intense. I never thought I’d stop crying and moping around the house. But now I know that I’d go through that a million more times overseeing my daughters.
This is the very definition of brutal. Loving this hard hurts.
The love I feel for my children is unlike any other love I’ve ever felt
Yes, I loved before I became a mom. I adore my husband, my dad, my friends and my family. But that love all seemed manageable. This love? This love keeps me up at night. This love brings me to my knees; literally and figuratively.
No one told me that I’d care this much about the well-being of another person. Elizabeth Stone said it best,
Making the decision to have a child — it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside of your body.
elizabeth stone
That is worded absolutely perfectly. My heart goes in four different directions every single day.
I knew parenting would be hard. Everyone knows that. I even knew that parenting teens would be the most challenging phase. Bigger kids; more significant problems are what they say. I could never have imagined nor prepared myself for how vulnerable I’d feel loved this much and how hard it would be to watch them hurt and not be able to take the hurt away.
There are some things I can do: I pray for them, encourage them, guide them, and I’m there for them in every way I can be. I will love them unconditionally until my last breath.
On the days I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out to be a mom, I remind myself that even though loving them so much hurts at times, it’s the single most wonderful thing I’ve ever done in my life.
And on those tougher days when I’m feeling weary, I’ll rest in the knowledge that it’s a privilege to be able to say that I loved with my whole heart.
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