MOTHER-IMPERFECT
| sweater | skirt | west elm planter | image by sydney clawson |
I love Instagram. In fact it's one of my favorite places to live. Probably yours too if you're sitting here with me right now. Sip coffee. Scroll. Sip. Scroll. Work. Lunch. Laundry. Homework. Work. Wine. Scroll. More wine. Baby baths. Scroll. Bed. It's exhausting. it's also quite literally composing a small threat to people everywhere. Because it's deceiving. And that's Ok. It's a free country. A free format. But for the record, cropped photos and good lighting can create distrust, because let's be honest, good lighting ain't real life. And today, I would just like to provide you all with a little bit of insight. Because today, let's just call it what it is. Let's just call her Mother-imperfect.
Every day unannounced to me I'm fighting the good fight. To be great. To be honest. To be me. Me, I strive for perfection. I don't like a mess. I don't like it half way done. And yet, I'm nowhere even near the vicinity of perfection. I'm often late, unshaved, emotional, disheveled and highly imperfect. I'm not the organized room mom. In fact sometimes I delete my emails before I can sign up for volunteering for the ninth party in a row. Guilty. But here's the revelation. Guilty = human. And if I'm honest, I'm really tired of trying to be superwoman. I'm not. I wear the cape and I try every day, but I'm just ordinary me. I'm mother, imperfect. And perhaps you are her too.
We live in a world today where we are constantly meeting the worlds needs and living on the edge of constant expectation that we are in desperate need of getting ahead. And that also we are perfectly happy. That life is a constant wheel of greatness. An epic blue sky of wonder. News flash. It's not. It's humanly erratically a walking ball of fire and we are walking right through it. Luckily partially unscathed. And you know what? I like that. I'm ok with that. I'm breathing. And I'm not dodging that fire, I'm walking through it with grit and grace. Because although life is full of rainbows and endless amounts of happy, it's not perfect. No where near. And yet, how incredible is it that we're alive and ok? And that we get to walk the walk and exist in the human experience? I don't think that sucks. At all.
But sometimes it sucks. And sometimes you cry in the middle of a symphony because the music moves you and stings you right in the heart opening you up like a wide broken vessel on the ocean, capable of drowning to the bottom of the black sea. But also, you might be so wide open that you feel the very thing that is life: healing. And redemption. And love. And that if you're capable of feeling that at the very moment you experience sadness combined with inspiration and a dose of gratitude, I'm pretty sure anything is possible.
Like raising your three children as magnificently as you see fit. Like sending your kid off to school with rips in her tights because you're already 2 minutes late and you don't want another tardy to add to her already 5 absences this year due to a clever stomach bug and a nasty cold. Like falling apart at the seams while your toddlers empty an entire recycle bin of glass wine bottles, only to fall down laughing in tears while those toddlers laugh at you confused and kiss your snotty face with innocent magical kisses. Like watching your 6 year old nail her math to the wall at full speed after struggling for 8 weeks believing she wasn't able to learn to do math. Like watching twin brothers play in the corner and learn to share Thomas the train after wrestling and screaming with each other 20 minutes prior. Like hearing a child vomit in her sleep and know at any moment two more toddlers are likely to follow. And although you think you'll die a slow death from bleaching your house 4 days in a row, you actually live. Like looking back at photos of years gone by and realizing in 6 years time, you've managed to not only keep 3 children alive, but managed to see them smile and laugh every day filling your heart with joy and knowledge of this magnificent truth: that despite your mistakes or moments of dismay and despite the feeling that you're not getting motherhood quite right, your children and your family and your mom friends happen to remind you, that not only are you raising them totally and completely right, you're doing it your way. And your way, in all it's non-fame and glory, is totally and completely, fabulous, amazing and stupidly beautiful just the way you are, Mother-Imperfect.
