Awesome and Sucky

I gave my notice this week to make it official: I’ll be returning to work part-time when my maternity leave is up.

We also had friends over for dinner this week who are expecting a baby in December, and it was amazing to ponder how quickly Torre has grown and developed. He only recently crossed the threshold of being alive outside of me longer than he grew inside me. Now he makes faces and claps his hands and walks along furniture and crams his mouth full with too many cheerios to chew all at once.

I can finally recognize his tired cry before I lose my mind wondering what the heck is wrong with him.

And as I contemplate motherhood pretty much constantly, and reflect on how quickly this year is passing and how quickly I know the coming years will pass, and my heart gets all giddy and achy thinking about milestones, I came across this article: Ten True Things About the First Year of Parenthood, and the very first thing is, “You are going to suck at this parenting gig and be awesome at it at the same time, all the time.”

Oh my, yes.

I don’t think I have ever experienced so many highs and lows in such short proximity to each other. I guess it is sort of to be expected considering all the hormones that are involved, but it is actually so crazy that sometimes I have to step back and remind myself, “two hours ago this was a great day, and nothing has really changed since then but the passing of time, so you’re probably just tired and not actually the most tragic example of a human being.”

But it’s hard for me to be bad at things, and it’s easy to beat myself up for the times that I suck. I just finished reading a book that I’ll review before long about brokenness in families, and one of the most beautiful ideas to me was clinging to the fact that God chose me to be Torre’s mom. That no matter what/how many my shortcomings are, God was aware of them when he chose me to mother this child. And he knew what kind of child Torre is when he gave him to me. We are literally a match made in heaven.

Just because it’s from God doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy though. And just because it’s often so hard doesn’t mean it’s not also so good.

I am stronger and braver and kinder than I was a year ago. I am more patient, more flexible, more selfless. However, the ways that I’ve grown also show me that I am still so much less all these things than I used to think I was. I am learning to balance self-care with death-to-self, which is awesome and sucky and worthwhile all at the same time.