The Conjuring of a Motherhood

The most prevalent thing in my life right now is motherhood—the texture of it, the joy, the exhaustion. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that there is anything else.

Before I had children, I had inklings of a career. I wanted to write, to edit. I dreamed of being an author even. I thought this was the goal—these dreams were what it was all about. But the brain has a funny way of filtering out what it is that you really need.

For me, that was a quiet life. I wanted to build a family, something I had never really known myself. I say quiet life and then I say big family—which hilarious now that I’m in it–come over here at 3:45 on any given day and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I have great admiration for those women who have managed to do both so far—I have no doubt that it has come with sacrifice.

Isn’t it incredible how you can want something so badly, even before you’ve experienced it? Maybe you’ve only spied it through a window or over dinner. You see it, want to know it. I wished for a family—to love, to be loved. It must have been the most important thing I craved because it rose to the top of the list.

And I did it. I conjured my family, my life, maybe through the sheer power of wishing for it.

It isn’t perfect—not by a mile. It’s wild and messy, a practice in patience, in forgiveness—an endurance race, even. But brick by brick, I built the safe haven that so escaped me as a child, a utopia complete with endless creatures, from dogs to wayward horses. I’m certain that most of us who have embarked on this journey have done the same. The renovation, literal or not, that never ends and so you must be comfortable in being a bit uncomfortable, in letting things grow and change around you.

The time is coming that I may have to build a new one, evolve to another version of what I have made. It seems an idea, doesn’t it? To build something you could have only imagined, only to know that the best thing for yourself and your family is to allow yourself to step outside of it? You have made a motherhood and now you must continue, because it is never done, just different.

Because we must grow. We have to. It’s the only way to get anywhere close to the best version of that human we imagined. It’s a fine line though, because we also have to be happy with who we are but also be totally fine with stepping outside of her. Some days, it seems impossible to me, because I’m still learning to trust myself. But I am not just me—I am only still her, that little girl whose dreams crept out of her mind to build themselves into a life.

I have to trust that little girl version of me, I suppose. She’s gotten me this far. She shaped a life out of tree leaves and a hidden glimpse through a well-lit window, from the seat of a car headed into oblivion.

And I have to trust that I am her, still.