Yikes, this is an honest post. The kind I suspect I should feel ashamed to write.
Except I don’t.
On Monday mornings, once I have dropped my girls at school and I’m driving to the office, I let out a massive sigh of relief.
Weekends used to be a time to rest, recover and perhaps even rejoice after a long week. Now they begin early and come with endless calls of “Mom”, “Mommy” and “Mama”, along with the ongoing need to entertain, sustain and occasionally placate a three-year-old and a four-year-old.
Let’s get something straight: I freaking love my girls. They are my favourite little humans ever!
And they can completely drain me.
I’m beginning to understand that, when it comes to these little beauties, I live in a world of and, not or.
I can adore them and long for some time away from them.
I can watch them bite and scratch each other, or call each other ridiculous names, and still find it slightly funny that this is my reality.
I can be grateful for an entire weekend with them and relieved when Monday morning arrives.
This relief does not cancel out the love. Admitting it is the uncomfortable part.
This idea of and is still quite new to me. So much of life seems to be presented as one thing or the other. I love being with my children, or I love my work. I want to travel, or I want to be home putting them to bed. If I choose one, it must mean I care less about the other.
But I’m beginning to wonder if I have misunderstood the trade-off.
Maybe the trade-off is not always between the two things I love. Maybe it sits somewhere else entirely: in my time, my energy, my attention, or the simple fact that I only have one body and cannot be in two places at once.
I can love travelling for work and love being home for bedtime. Those two loves do not have to compete for first place. The constraint is that, when bedtime arrives, I can only be in one place. It is a question of physics, not necessarily a verdict on what matters most to me.
The same may be true of that Monday morning sigh. My relief does not mean I did not want the weekend with my girls. It might simply mean I ran out of energy. My love for them was still there.
Maybe motherhood is full of these uncomfortable combinations. I want to hold them close, and sometimes I desperately want nobody to touch me for five minutes. I’m still not entirely comfortable admitting that, but pretending only one of those things is true does not feel honest either.
I don’t know if other mothers feel this too, or if it is simply something we don’t always say out loud.
For now, I’m trying to let the and exist, even when guilt makes me want to turn it back into an or.
I love my girls fiercely.
And on Monday mornings, I really love the quiet of that car.
I want to recognize a very special lady who coached me and corrected my or to and thinking!