Mothering In Community

New season of life. New blog title. Why not?

The URL will remain the same as I don't want to lose or forget about what I've already written here, so come here for my new thoughts - and hopefully some new discussions - about this thing that I've been doing for thirteen days called BEING A MOTHER.

(Holy crap.)

Still feeling quite overwhelmed by that title as, naturally, it's something my mother would do and not me. But I can now state with a modest amount of force that I am not as overwhelmed as I was a week ago. A week ago, when I would be rocking our little Jelly Bean to sleep and trying to sing Brahms' Lullaby to her...and couldn't make it through ten notes without bursting into tears from joy and terror. Yes, both. Simultaneously.

"Oh my, I have a baby! Oh my...I have a baby?!"

Now would be a good time to say that I'm going to be as unfiltered as is possible in this public forum.

Because apparently this mothering thing is not for the faint of heart.

No, not exactly right, for I have "fainted" plenty over the last couple of weeks. More than I have in any two weeks of my life to date. But as my wonderful pastor said in church this morning (we watched it online), many times when God asks you to do something, He knows you can't do it. He's asking you to do it so that you can learn more about relying on Him.

So I hereby declare for the first of what will be countless times...I am, naturally, pretty self-focused. I have been childless for all of these thirty-two years, after all. I want to sleep when I want, and eat when I want, and shower when I want. I mean, a girl's got to have her dignity after all, right? Right?! Why isn't anyone saying anything?!!

Dignity is not adaptive to current conditions, and I can either hold fast to it and sink this ship, or I can release it and get about the business of surviving. (For me, just having this baby did a good job of loosening lots of that dignity, but that's another story for another time.)

So. I'm trying to eat when I can, and sleep and shower when I can. And maybe someday I'll start cleaning the kitchen again. But for now, this is enough for me.

Actually, in terms of responsibility and blessing, it's more than enough for me.