Living for Tomorrow
It’s really hard to experience Wonder today if you are living for tomorrow. As moms, today can often feel really hard. So hard, you can’t help but focus on simply getting through to the next day, the next week or the next phase.
When my first child was born I was completely overwhelmed. And not the “overwhelmed by the joy and miracle of birth” kind of feeling. The kind of overwhelmed where every moment is filled with the gut churning anxiety that comes with being the primary life sustainer of another human being. My life was completely driven by the fear that I was just one mistake away from being a terrible mother. When you feel this way, finishing every day with the house still standing, all adults fed and baby still breathing feels like a hard won victory. The burden of this fear-fed mom anxiety made me dream of the days when my son would reach the next phase and then maybe I wouldn’t feel so run down. First it was sleeping through the night, then eating solid food, then walking, then talking; a never ending gauntlet of checkpoints that each time I passed through a new gate, I hoped would bring me back to the “normal” life I dimly remembered. I was disappointed to find that each time I passed into a new phase I discovered that the mom-fear never went away, it only shifted focus onto something new to be concerned about.
When I think back on that time now, I think of lost opportunity. Amazingly beautiful scenery I hardly noticed because I was so focused on getting home by nap time. Fantastic church and community programs I passed on because it seemed too hard to take an infant with me anywhere. Potential lifetime friendships I only marginally invested in because it was too hard to think about anyone other than myself, my baby and occasionally my husband. It makes me sad because now I see I was doing my best, but life could have been so much richer.
I lived this half life for 18 months until two things happened: we moved across the country to a completely new environment, and I met my best friend, who showed me how to be a woman that has mom-fears but bravely moves forward and lives an exciting life regardless. With her encouragement I learned that my intense focus on myself, my baby and my short term needs actually made life harder, not easier. Her example taught me to open my eyes to the good things around me and to get deeply involved with others, my church and my community. And most importantly, to rely less on my own abilities, which would inevitably fail me, and more on divine strength and the kindness of those who love me. I realized that my mom-fear was rooted in the hidden wisdom that I cannot do everything on my own. Once I let go of the false expectation that I should have all mom-knowledge and do all mom-tasks perfectly, then my mom-fear and it’s pervasive cousin, mom-guilt, lost their hold on me. My new freedom allowed me to find wonder and feel content today, instead of just surviving until tomorrow. Learn from my wasted time. There are no guarantees that tomorrow will be better than right now. Focus on the journey, not the destination and begin to live the amazing life God has for you today.
