more than a mother

please forgive the radio silence around these parts. my goal is to be more consistent about posting in this space, but i have yet to find balance between all the ways in which i am being pulled.

mothering, keeping a home, some semblance of a social life, not to mention marriage... it's quite a load.

the mother in me is exhausted. chasing a spirited two year old--who is discovering free will, her voice and emotions--while caring for a three month old who more often than not is suckling energy from my breast, it's no easy task. don't misunderstand my words...i never thought it would be. i was not naive as we ventured into this parenting of multiples.


do i regret this--this choice of being mother? not even close. would i trade it? never. do i miss the freedom, independence, drive, hustle that used to pump through my blood, awaken my bones, motivate me to pursue my goals, hopes, dreams? daily.

for the last two and a half years, i feel that i have been settling. that i am so much more than just a mother. and yet even as i type that word right there, toward the end of the previous sentence, 'just..' i struggle to use it. it feels as if i am perhaps dismissing the work of the mothers whom the whole of their lives longed to be exactly that. so while i do not mean to dismiss or degrade, my own spirit longs--and always has longed--for more.

for the mother in me is not the sum of who i am. i am human, mostly discovering who i have been, who i am, who i am becoming. there are parts of me hidden away yearning to be dusted off, exposed once again. the wanderer, the rebel, the seeker, the dreamer, the musician, the writer, the lover. oh how i long to tap into those parts of me, rejuvenate them. so i once again might feel whole and alive.

even so, as i ponder what that may look like--to truly revive the muted parts--doubt, guilt creep in.

but what about your children?

do you really want to neglect them?

you are their mama, you need to raise them, not place them in the care of someone else's hands.

those thoughts, fears, they have run me. they have run and ruled me the last two and a half years. i have listened. i have believed them. i have believed that doing something for myself, getting back to the roots of who i am, melissa, would make me a terrible mother. that somehow hadley and amelia would feel neglected, feel that their mommy doesn't in fact care for them.

i have believed those lies. i have told myself those lies. and it wasn't until recently i truly believed that they were, in fact, just that.

lies.

yes being a mother takes sacrifice. as does all things in life. whatever you choose to prioritize, you in turn sacrifice another.

but lately i have come to truly believe--and i mean, in the deepest of my bones--that in order to be the best mother i can be--really to even mother at all--to be the best wife and human, i must fill my cup.

author karen andreola writes, if there is such a thing as the joy of childhood there is also such a thing as the joy of motherhood. how wonderful when the mother can say, 'my cup runneth over,' because it will run over into the family circle. 

thus, in order to fully cultivate the souls of my children i must must must cultivate my own soul.

because, indeed, i am mother but i am much much more.