Motherhood: The Ultimate Mirror?

Motherhood can be incredibly self-revealing.

Nearly two years ago I found out I was pregnant, and the idea that I was going to be a mother both thrilled and terrified me. What began as two pink lines on a plastic stick became a delicate, sometimes heart-wrenching journey into the mysterious world of motherhood. Still relatively new to the experience, I have not figured it all out yet –some how I think I never will.

For me, the last two years have been about shedding layer upon layer of myths I believed about myself and the world. It has been about sacrifice and love I did not know I was capable of. I resist the process every mother must undertake of letting go of their former self –or the façade their former self clung to. When children come along, they seem to bring with them a large selection of hotel-type incandescent light bulbs. I do not have to describe how these forsaken bulbs reveal the imperfections of an eyebrow wax or darken under eye circles with their sickly yellow light. Being a mother has been like sitting under these lights in the hotel bathroom and giving my reflection a good, hard stare just when I was sure I was ready to go out. It seems that the moment I am pleased with myself for, say, being on time to a gathering, my son will inevitably have a bout of diarrhea that requires more than wipes but rather a hosing down in the bathtub. The instant I allow the prideful notion to creep into my head that I just might be the best mother I know, he will be sure to throw a screaming fit that goes about ten minutes beyond my threshold of tolerance. At this point I become a three-headed monster, snapping in anger and impatience. Then I do what all moms do: shrink back in guilt and realize that I have so very far to go.

Yes, motherhood can feel a bit undignified, but I am no martyr; I am blessed to be so humbled by the ride. Children serve as an incredible catalyst for growth and change. In her book Traveling Mercies, writer Anne Lamott describes it as, “one of the gifts kids give you, because after you have a child, things come out much less orderly and rational than they did before.”

I love that motherhood has taken a bucket of white paint and splashed it over my life’s canvas. With the deconstruction underway, I can slowly learn to live authentically –with the vulnerability required to have deeper relationships and greater life meaning.