Something quite prominent in this season of life, of becoming a parent and navigating the world with a whole new purpose, is learning how to surrender. Like really surrender, not in a popular-influencer-post kind of way where you have to wonder, what exactly are they surrendering to? The joys of only drinking shakes during their latest cleanse or to releasing a new boho preset? Who knows. But anyway, I’m talking about surrendering in an - If You Don’t Learn How To Lean In To It All, Then You Will Actively Lose Your Shit On The Daily - type of way. It’s a bit less pretty and a bit less fun, but all the more necessary.
One of the trickiest parts I’ve found of this whole motherhood gig is challenging my own expectations of how I thought everything should be. All the things from my identity as a mother (what do we do? What do we look like? Who are we?), to housework, to how my child sleeps. A big part of this is also learning to challenge my expectations of what other people think of me, despite how self-absorbed it all is. I'm constantly preoccupied with if others perceive me to be doing good enough or not, regardless of if these expectations are even voiced (hint: 99% of the time they aren't and probably don't even exist).
Yeah, it’s complicated. Who would guess that I've occasionally been known to overanalyze?
The conflict between my expectations and reality, which I never thought about pre-sprogs now exist, very pressingly, in my day-to-day life. How does one manage to stay sane when your child's behavior doesn’t look "good" or "obedient" like it's apparently supposed to, when they are truly seen and heard? How does one manage to keep their cool when day after day, your house will never be as clean and tidy as all the effort you pour into trying to make it clean and tidy? How will you manage to still be an actual person, slightly separate from the go-to person who wipes noses and packs snacks?
It’s not the actual situations that are often the most difficult, but rather that it’s tough to constantly feel torn between what is flowing in reality verses trying to strive for how you think things should be. Take normal infant sleep, for example (the classic example, I know). You’re constantly conflicted between your instincts of responding to your baby verses your learnt expectations of babies being 100% independent at night. Of course the sleep deprivation can truly be awful, I'm definitely not about to minimize that, but the situation is only made that much more difficult if you’re fighting with your expectations rather than just doing what works for you and your family. To unlearn these expectations and your behaviors that go along with them can be a real challenge. Allowing yourself to let things go, and to lean in to how your child needs you in that moment, is really tricky. It can also be made all the more difficult if you’re like me and are a bit of a sensitive soul, readily taking to heart the lack of approval from others.
Letting go of expectations also requires a certain degree of confidence in who you are as a mother. Oh to not care what other people think (or what you think they think); how freeing that would be! I do hope to actively try and become more this way. Maybe that can be a New Year's resolution.
Anyway, back to the point. We have been told that our baby will arrive soon. We are excited and a bit nervous. Everyone around us is excited too and it's lovely that they feel our joy. But me being me feels kind of afraid of disappointing people if the baby doesn’t arrive as soon as expected or by a certain date, which I understand is ridiculous on my part! I feel this weird pressure to quite literally push a baby out so that I can provide everyone with said baby and then they will be happy and not feel like I'm taking too long to have the baby?!? Like holy mackerel, how does my brain even form this stuff?
But I know. I know. I need to shut myself off from these absolutely ridiculous and definitely false expectations. I know other people aren't thinking that. They are simply excited to meet the baby, that's all. And as for myself, I need to lean into the babe and my body. They both will do what they need to do when the time is right and my weird need to "Be Good Enough At Giving Birth By A Random Date” is entirely stupid. Even writing it out makes me realize how stupid it is, seriously, I'm wtf-ing myself right now. This baby will arrive when she arrives, and obsessing with an arbitrary date is silly.
For now, I'm trying to make the most of this time we have together as a family of three. My husband is on leave from work over Christmas and it has been wonderful to play with our toddler in her mud kitchen, to tile the walls, to take things a bit slower. I'm planning to rest, lots, and most of all to keep challenging myself to let go.
Come when you are ready, small babe of ours. The wait is good for us.
Comments
Post a Comment