Paradox

Today my college professor posted a link to his Facebook. It was a YouTube video of a young college student participating in a poetry slam. She used her words to describe life with her mother, as she watched her mother deprive herself of food in an effort to be thin, and as she saw herself doing the same. The words were poignant, well chosen, delivered with impact.

I watched the video while bouncing my fussing 6 month old on my hip. But I hardly heard his whimpering. The words MOVED me. My 2 year old daughter came in the front door, slamming it behind her, cheeks red from the cold. "MOMMY!" as she proceeded to tell me about her adventures. But I couldn't hear her. I was hanging on the words of the poet. And it wasn't even so much what she was saying as it was the way that she said it, the feeling behind it; the way she twisted and molded the words to have meaning and beauty and depth.

"MOMMY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!!!" my toddler impatiently asks, tugging on my shirt. "Who knows what mommy's doing?" I heard my husband say.

And it's funny, because neither of them would understand if I told them. My husband's an engineer, and poetry isn't exactly his thing. And my daughter... well she doesn't know me as anything but "mommy". She doesn't know that I was an English major in college... that I've loved reading and dissecting and ruminating on words since I was a child. Or that this same college professor who posted this link told me when I graduated college that I had a real knack for literature and that if I wanted to be I had what it took to be a literature professor someday. Or that deep in my soul I have always wanted to write. To her, I'm just "mommy".

And today is one of those hard days. Where even though I have chosen this path of full-time stay at home mom, I feel some sadness that I'm not chasing all of those dreams. I have this part of my soul that loves art and literature and creating beauty. But that part of me is holding it's breath while I change another diaper and kiss another boo boo.

Tonight I looked down at my chubby baby boy, sitting naked in his bath in the kitchen sink. He looked up at me with his bright blue eyes and flashed me his incredible smile. I realized in that moment that motherhood is full of paradoxes.  I don't regret where I am for even a second, and yet I often long for what will never be. If I'm not careful guilt begins to creep in, and I feel bad for acknowledging those feelings. But there they are. I want my children to know that part of me someday. I want them to know that I have dreams to be more than just their mommy, and yet am more satisfied in my soul being their mother than doing anything else in the world.