The Changing Landscapes of Motherhood
Part of a collection, "The Weight of Moments: Essays on Motherhood and Time" a micro series themed and centered around time and how we experience it , are shaped by it and bear the weight of it.
*( Feel free to skip this intro and jump to the piece below)
Happy Sunday friends! And happy first day of fall! I hope it is cooler where you all are. Even with 95 degrees the changing seasons brings with it hope or at least the promise of a new perspective. I’m excited to start releasing some work I produced earlier this year. But first, a brief backstory on the piece below… for the first time in my writing life earlier this year I took writing workshops! It is truly life-changing to be able to create in the community alongside others and receive feedback and encouragement in real time. But I digress. I took a writing workshop this spring and this summer with the wonderfully talented and insightful ladies at Exhale. I wrote a handful of micro-essays, short stories, and pieces that were brief but my writing felt cleaner and clearer than it has in a long while.
This is perhaps the gift of brevity; the gift of writing within the confines of limited time, limited energy, and marginal mental space for creativity. This is honestly where I find myself existing lately with a new full-time job/field and industry and with two school-aged children and extracurricular activities and tasks and responsibilities that come with sustaining a career and a family. In recent months I’ve found myself wondering why things still feel so hard, so heavy, in my parenting journey when I am supposedly out of the ‘trenches’? With all due respect to the unique seasons of motherhood and the unique strength and resilience required to come through them
( looking at your pregnancy, postpartum, sleeplessness nights, teething, breastfeeding, etc.) I don’t know that we are ever out of the ‘trenches’.
I am slowly accepting that something in me internally has been forever changed and re-arranged, and this is why things can still feel hard even in a ‘good’ season of life, even when these stages are supposed to be ‘easier’. There are different needs challenges and obstacles that beg us (me ) to rise to the occasion. I am always interested in research that points to the changes in a mother’s brain or the impact of motherhood on different functions over time- hello sleep debt that takes 7 years to recover, and pregnancy hormones that can linger in our brain/body up to two years after giving birth, and so much more I can’t fully explore in this single post.
I was reminded recently that beginnings while exciting are also hard because anything new is also vulnerable.. It is vulnerable to try/start something new. Be it a new job, friendship, therapy, a new class, or a new situation, beginnings can be very vulnerable. I am trying to give myself more grace in a season where I feel so stretched beyond my limits and presence requires being fully aware to all of the discomfort that comes with growth and new situations. My hope in sharing these words and reflections is that you will give yourself a permission slip to have grace for the hard and heavy places in your own life and journey. Be it a parenting or something else. Sometimes the weight of life, of being a caregiver/nurturer/creator/provider causes me to feel that I am caving in but I am reminded that softening is not a bad thing. I hope you can be soft with what you expect or require from yourself in this season as the landscapes of motherhood or life change.
The Changing Landscapes of Motherhood
I’m told I’m no longer in ‘the trenches’ of parenting since I’m no longer in the breastfeeding, pregnancy, or diaper-changing phases of parenting and motherhood. But I wonder who gets to decide this?
I’m told I’m no longer ‘in the trenches’ but most days I’m still drinking cold coffee or tea and not on purpose.
Most nights it still takes everything, to drag my weary body to the shower or bathroom and it takes what feels like far too much effort to do the bare minimum of caring for myself like washing my face and brushing my teeth.
I still find discarded snacks and toys on most surface levels of my home and the laundry piles, hunger levels, and calendars feel far too full.
My body vividly remembers pregnancy, birth, and baby days, like they were yesterday even though the long years have faded into a distant yesterday.
Maybe this is why mothers are so tired? Because our bodies carry it all- Our children’s inception, existence, hunger, fears, and needs long after they’ve outgrown them.
I’m told I’ll have more ‘me time’ not far off into the future. The teen years maybe? I’m sure this is where all the teen parents laugh at me.
But the concept of ‘me’ apart from them still feels murky, still daunting, still unclear, and still feels impossible and sometimes scary.
Maybe ‘the trenches’ of parenting are marked on our hearts, souls, and bodies, oblivious to the passing of time.
So when outsiders are looking in, they don’t see trenches, they see clear paths and flat landscapes. But we know our landscape is forever changed, forever re-arranged.
That there are still valleys, trenches, caves, places where the weight of it all caved in.
Where we gave way and let ourselves be reshaped. Maybe I’m not in the trenches? But feeling the effects of time eroding away hard edges forever softening my mind and heart, changing the landscape of my soul.
"Maybe ‘the trenches’ of parenting are marked on our hearts, souls, and bodies, oblivious to the passing of time.
So when outsiders are looking in, they don’t see trenches, they see clear paths and flat landscapes. But we know our landscape is forever changed, forever re-arranged."
This is so true, motherhood changes us permanently because motherhood is forever. As a mom of four ranging in age from 17-31, I don't think I'll ever be the person I once was. No matter what happens, I am forever changed. And that's okay. Glad I found your writing Hannah, keep up the good work!
I love every word of this. Maybe the trenches are my stretch marks? 😅 Thank you for writing such a tender letter for us.