Push and Pull

From the very beginning, motherhood is both screaming, white knuckle, ripped wide open pain and giddy, heaven-hued, otherworldly happiness.  It is an experience, a process, a relationship of simultaneous give and take, rise and fall, push and pull that leaves you somewhere in between pleasure and pain, fear and faith, lightning and thunder.  

It's a landscape of glorious heights in pink and orange blushed skies--moments that catch your breath and don't give it back, convincing you of its unequaled importance--and also dark, discouraging valleys--moments that tempt you with anger, impatience and apathy.  It's a place of tremendous contradiction, colliding emotions of extremes, ups and downs without rest. There is no paved road for you here, no obvious direction, no map to find your multiple destinations.  You step and move with instinct, guided by gut and good intentions, encouraged by that inside whispering, that tickle in your soul that promises it's worth it, that it matters more than anything, and with inevitable missteps, stubbed toes, bruised heel, you walk on, a pocketful of hopes and crackers, chasing and carrying your children.  

It destroys you as it builds you, stripping away who you thought you were, what you thought you wanted.  It steps all over youth's vanity, that selfish, naive creature of ambition and expectation, and through a constant, steady stretching of sacrifice and love, the daily grind of what you do, it builds something better, something unplanned, shocking in what it reveals--new understandings, fresh empathies,  awakened curiosities, surprising capabilities.

It is a thief, stealing freedom, time, sleep, quiet, balance, flat stomachs, dry clean only wardrobes, manicured lives but it is also a patron of growth and character, the invaluable benefactor of the woman you couldn't become without it.      

It is a fight between what you want and what they need, resentment and embrace, who they are and who they can become.  Sometimes you win, sweet, honey-dripping victories, but most of the time, you don't. 

In a single day, you want to both throw it out the window and cuddle with it in bed, its head tucked under your chin, its warmth pardoning any offense.  In a single day, it pukes in the back seat, yells at you for ruining its life, complains about dinner, throws itself on the linoleum at Target, loses its retainer, and refuses to practice the piano and at its side, in perfect companionship, it perfumes the air with butterscotch-scented baby breath, raises its arms needing exactly you, leaves crayola love notes in your shoe, fills the house with laughter and bubbles, does without asking, twirls in pink tutus around the kitchen floor, and promises that it loves you more than Disneyland and orange soda.       

Motherhood is your complete undoing, but it is also your making, your breathing and beating purpose, that soft, beautiful hum of meaning in your heart.  And to the very end, give and take, rise and fall, push and pull.