Is Motherhood Easier or Just Different?

My kids are 6 and 8. I want to freeze them in time and savor their young but-not-babies stage for the rest of my life. A few missing teeth? Perfect. Beg me to lay in your bed but we both know you don't need it? Yes. Fill your own cup with water but still tell me you're doing it? Yeah, I needed this. I've been waiting to drop into motherhood in an authentic, enjoyable, not-nearing-catastrophe way for almost 9-years. It's time. 

I spent the first few years of parenting in a constant state of paralyzing anxiety. Always awaiting the next brutal virus and sleepless nights, even when things were good, I knew that was temporary and I held my breath. The early years of motherhood felt like a series of battles, sometimes emotional and sometimes physical (oftentimes both), disrupting joy as my baseline and replacing it with survival. It was hard and many women said it would be. Sometimes, in a state of near-regret while I mindlessly scroll in bed, I check back to my phone's photos from those early years looking for proof of joy, and I exhale. There are smiles -- plenty of them. We had good times, and funny times, and made memories doing things that I am so proud that we did. Look at that girl, I think to myself about the younger me, doing the very best she could to feed and hug those babies, get on the floor to play, and cuddle them during Paw Patrol. She did it, and it wasn't all bad -- it was just so hard. 

This year, everything has changed. Viruses still come but they aren't as disastrous. Sleep is pretty plentiful. And life is just easier. But I could not have predicted the emotional challenges that would follow me into the blissful years: why are my kids' childhoods slipping through my fingers at an alarming speed? I remember when I could easily and proudly recall the last two years of Halloween costumes and birthday themes, because after all, we only had experienced a few of them. Now I rely on photos and random memories that my kids call to mind to remember a lot of the details. I'm reaching unknown territory, and it scares me. Time, don't make me fight to hang on to it all. I don't want to lose an ounce, especially now, when I relish in a sweet victory of making it to this phase. 

Over the past year, I'm hyper aware of the world's destruction around me. Another day of jarring headlines, news of war, accidents and illnesses. On some days, it almost feels like too much to look outside of my own home and face the reality of how horribly some people have it. So mentally, I don't. I look at the dirty soccer cleats, pink scrunchies, and homework we need to finish. I study my kids' faces like I once did when they were babies and brand new for me to memorize. But now, they are familiar and warm and give me a spark in my belly. I resisted the pressure to appreciate the mundane times because I really couldn't. But gratitude has found me when I need it and am ready for it, when I am my softest and most sure of myself. Life feels more fragile than ever, and so concurrently to that, how fortunate I am to find my comfortable place in motherhood, right here, with a little more ease, appreciation and optimism -- and a goal to not let it pass me by.