I am going to be very honest here. Not that I usually lie. But, I like to write about something after I’ve got it neatly figured out in my mind. I prefer to organize my thoughts and feelings in a nicely gift-wrapped package and then deliver them onto my blog’s doorstep for others to enjoy.
This post, however, is not yet in the gift box. I’m struggling to get it shoved into the “figured out” section of my cranium. Instead, I continue to mull over it and have concluded, at least for the time being, that I can’t neatly package it. So I guess I’ll just dump the contents of my brain out onto my blog platform and see what happens. Maybe it will help me organize my feelings as I sort them out in cyberspace.
My conflict comes in the form of two little girls. Granted, they have conflict amongst themselves over who had the doll baby first and which of them has the prettier fingernail polish. I’m not talking about that conflict. No, I’m referring to the conflict within me.
I have two very strong emotions that are on the complete opposite end of the “feelings spectrum.” I can not understand how I can have both emotions dwell so strongly in my heart and mind when they are so polar opposite.
In one corner, I have the emotion of frustration. My daughters, ages 2 and 4, are always with me. I’m a stay-at-home mom and so I mean, my daughters, are ALWAYS with me. When I wake up, when I go to the restroom, when I take a shower, when I eat, when I exercise, when I drive… you get the idea. Sometimes I just would like to have a minute to myself when no little voice interrupts my conversation or my train of thought. In fact, my train of thought has been derailed so often that I’m not even sure it’s on the tracks anymore. I’m getting tired of stoking the firebox and I feel as if my head may literally spew smoke. I just want to be left alone.
In the other corner… I don’t want to be left alone!! I absolutely LOVE being a Mommy. It’s my favorite stage of life so far and I’m living my dream. My husband is amazing and our son is enjoying second grade and I have the privilege of staying home with our two daughters. It’s wonderful. I dread the day, in a few years, when my girls will both be in school and these precious preschool days will be done. The thought almost brings tears to my eyes.
How can this be?!
How can I feel both frustration and elation so strongly at the same time?
I don’t know, but I’m telling you that they are both in the ring. They are duking it out every day. I want to hush my girls as they interrupt me for the 823rd time in a day and at the same time I want to scoop them up and snuggle them for hours. I want to be left alone so that I can do what I want to do for an evening, but when I am gone I find myself missing my children deeply and thinking about them often. When I see pictures of my kids as babies I lament that their infant stages are behind us while at the same time wanting to dance with joy that their infant stages are behind us.
Seriously, my Mommy emotions are sometimes like two magnets with opposite poles. They push at each other inside of me and cause me such confusion, joy, grief, happiness and exhaustion.
I don’t know yet how to neatly package these emotions. I can’t reconcile them in my own mind let alone gift-wrap them to deliver neatly to others.
I guess that’s motherhood. It’s a confusing, conflicting, beautiful mess. And now that I’ve got my thoughts laying in a heap I realize that it’s not so bad after all.
It’s the gift that matters anyway, not the way it’s wrapped.
Christy Cabe 
I think you’ve summed it up very well, Christy!
Life is full of changes and the dilemma of conflict. I think that as the maturing happens it provides precious memories. And the outcome is worth the cost.
Beautifully put, and not to give anything away here about the years to come, but that conflict never goes away. At least that’s been my experience, even with my girls now 25, 23, and 21, living on their own, married, or away at college. Embrace the fact that you have what is a luxury today, staying at home with your children. It is more important than you know, for you and for the kids. And celebrate that your husband supports this choice, even if he might sometimes bear the repercussions of a wife who has reached stimulation overload!
AMEN!!! You said it exactly how it is!!!!! And I understand………completely!!