Sometimes motherhood is overwhelming. And I often feel like I’m doing something wrong because of it.
We went shopping for school supplies today. Magoo had the standard list, and Goosie just needed a back pack. We went into Walmart and headed for the back to school aisle. That messy, overcrowded, confusing den of chaos.
It was a surreal experience just like almost every other experience of motherhood. As soon as we walked in the aisle, I was flooded with flashbacks from my own childhood. I remembered shopping for backpacks and folders and crayons and pencils. I remembered how exciting it was to get all of these new tools. I would sit there staring at them, trying to imagine what the school year would bring. What would we use the folders for? What would it be like to be using these pencils? I was always sure that each new school year would bring me closer and closer to being a big kid. I was a dreamer. An imaginer. And from the moment we purchased the first school supply, those dreams would come flooding to me.
So when we walked into the aisle today and I had all of those vivid memories, I got excited for Magoo. She’s a lot like me in those ways. And so I wasn’t surprised at all when she spent half the afternoon counting her folders and organizing them and saying things like, “I wonder what the four colored folders will be used for,” and “I wonder if the binder will be for my journal this year.” She would then gaze off wistfully, a near replica of what I probably looked like thirty years ago.
For kids, a new school year is awesome. They get to go back with their friends after a summer off, and they get all new art projects and songs and routines. Each new school year is a passport to adventure and another notch to mark off on the way to growing up.
And it’s that second part that can be overwhelming for their poor mamas. Magoo doesn’t realize that as she’s counting folders, I’m counting years since I first held her in my arms. As she closes her eyes and dreams about new adventures, I’m secretly mourning the ones we have already experienced together. As my heart bursts with pride at all she has become, it also breaks for all that she was and is no more. The butterfly doesn’t mourn the caterpillar it once was, but I sure bet its mama does.
And if that’s all that was going on, it would have been emotional and confusing. But then you add to that the little sisters and the other customers and the specificity with which supply lists are written, and it can become completely overwhelming.
And that’s the part that I hate. That’s the part that makes me feel guilty.
I believe I should be in that aisle, living the emotional moments, but instead, I’m getting flustered. I’m getting overwhelmed at the questions and the number of times I have to remind people to get back in the cart. I’m getting crazy, trying to put all the supplies back that little hands keep grabbing. I hear myself repeating the same answers to the same questions for the five hundredth time, and I start to feel like I’m spinning away.
Afterwards, I find myself sitting in the car after finally getting all the supplies loaded and the little ones buckled in. I just sit there for a moment letting everything settle. All the emotion. All of the chaos. And I feel guilt because I fear I’m not fully experiencing the moment because I get caught up in the chaos.
But as I write it now, I start to wonder. Perhaps the chaos is an integral part of it. Perhaps the chaos is as much a part of the story as the memories made or the memories recalled are.
And I sit here now reminding myself that motherhood is not a peaceful journey. It was never billed as one, and I’ve never experienced it as one. But perhaps it’s the very fact that it is so overwhelming and all-encompassing that makes it all that it is.
If motherhood were easy perhaps it would fade into the background like lesser endeavors. Perhaps it’s the very fact that we give so much that makes it mean so much. Perhaps its the loudness of motherhood that constantly draws our ears toward our littles. And perhaps it’s sometimes the distraction of the chaos that can stop us from totally melting into the magnitude of each moment.
I don’t really know. I just know there are loud, sobbing tears coming from the kitchen because someone’s nose “hurts really really bad,” and I need to go figure out some way to fix that.