Motherhood: I'm Not Cut Out for This

It's days like today when it snows in early November, I look out the window and think to myself

I'm not so sure I'm cut out for this.

Afternoons like this very one when my youngest takes a spill off a stool in the kitchen and summersaults himself stunned onto his back. I scoop him up and carry him to the chair where he cries about an ouchie on his leg, and I'm simultaneously rocking him and talking myself down off the ledge that wants me to jump headfirst into catscan

when I think I'm not cut out for this.

Days like yesterday when my oldest defiantly stomps out the door and promptly steps on a nail that goes through his shoe, piercing his skin. 

I'm hugging his shoulders and helping him limp to the couch thoughts running crazy in my head of last vaccination and tetanus and he's already propped his foot up and asking what's for dinner when I wonder to myself

about how I'm not quite convinced I'm cut out for this. 

When I'm whispering words of encouragement to trembling hearts

while my own is just as shaky

and I'm holding down the fort as day meets dusk

and praying hard and hallowed prayers of Thy will be done 

but please, too, protect my own soft heart

when I realize that life and living requires a toughness I just don't have,

and I'm certainly sure I'm not cut out for this.

None of it.

I'm cradling a ceramic mug and watching pieces of my heart run through fresh snow as I try to sip strength from the Words written across thin pages and the cup in my hands.

"Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."

I breathe softly and fully out and accept the reminder

that every bit of refining fire makes the clay stronger

and that I'm right when I say I'm not cut out for this

because rather instead I've been carefully molded

and strengthened flame by flame.

Everyday Life: A Heart Tug of War

In second grade, my teacher told me that writers have names like Hyacynth upon reading a story I wrote when she'd only asked for a sentence.

And a seed was planted.

Growing up I defined myself first and foremost as a writer, and out of that definition I bloomed.

I drank words like greenery gulps rain; I feasted on sentences like the garden does sunshine.

None of that changed when I married or when I birthed my boys.

None of that except my heart.

Motherhood grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a new name: mommy.

A name given by the two little pieces of my heart that now walk around beating outside of my body. And in that name of mother, I discovered another identity, too -- one seen clearly in the reflection of motherhood: daughter.

Beloved by my Creator and made to be a writer, yes, but a mother, yes, just as much in this season. 

And so goes the tug of war on my heart, centered around who I am.

I am always daughter; I am always beloved.

But right now, I am very mother. And in motherhood, I feel writer slipping away from me.

Because writers, well, writers

should write books.

And submit pieces to magazines.

They should carve out a few hours per day to lay down stories into print.

Keep up their clips and skill and hone their art.

But where are the hours for that in motherhood?

Time? Yes, there is time to sneak a few thoughts onto paper, time to write a mini manifesto about why feeding spaghetti to the small ones on a stressful day never actually ends in waves of calm, time to pour out small gleaned moments into black on white.

And that's it. That's all I'm willing to give it right now.

Because while I have to keep reminding myself that, yes, I will always be a writer and, yes, I will always be mother.

I will never be a mother in this season again.

And the most important story I'm writing right now is the one we live out everyday.

This piece was written live at Saturday's Creative Soul even during our Writing Circles. Want to sign up for a virtual one? Click here!