When I was pregnant with my first child I had plans. I had an image in my head of what life would look like, feel like…be. Before me lay a clean, white, crisp paper. Pristine and perfect, glimmering in my mind like an attainable goal. But here’s the thing about motherhood. About life…it’s messy. Really messy. It clings to you with a sticky kind of love that fogs up your glasses and smudges your perfect plans.
Once my daughter was born I learned a long and hard lesson. There is such perfection in the imperfection of life. In our moments. Beauty in the crusty, tangled seconds that fill the minutes of our days. It has taken me six years and a second child to let go of that desire and belief in perfection. I was blinded for ages by the images in my mind. Images that I couldn’t quite make a reality.
Disappointment has a way of plaguing the early days of motherhood, robbing us of our joy as we strive to reach lofty unrealistic goals. Yet, I was surprised to find {along the way} that my moments were filled with the most imperfectly perfect love. A love so big it swallows you up and changes you. A love so chaotic and thick that sometimes you can hardly speak. I began to realize how short life is. How short this time in our life is. This time with little hands and feet next to us. Needing us.
These are our moments, the only ones we’re going to get. So smudge on them, ink them up, spill all over them and they’ll be…perfect.
