You're not the only one

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to an event just for women. As I listened to other mothers speak of their trials in motherhood, I felt comforted.

I remember how excited I was to be a mother. Even though my first pregnancy had it's difficulties, I was happy, and looked forward to the sweet little baby that was to come. And then he came. And with him came sleepless nights, tears, frustrations, and very brief moments of joy. But everywhere around me (blogs, facebook, etc) other women were going on and on and gushing about how wooonderful motherhood was. Not that I didn't think it was wonderful, but I mostly just felt like it was hard. Really, really hard. And not only were they gushing about how wonderful it was, but were also doing things like making amazing meals, sewing their baby perfect little outfits, and were being wonderful wives to their husbands. Apparently, something was very, very wrong with me.

And then, this weekend, as I listened to these other women tell their stories of grief, frustration, and feeling overwhelmed a lot of the time with motherhood, I realized, I was in fact normal. Motherhood is hard. We mothers do shed a lot of tears. We mothers do feel a lot of frustration and/or inadequacy. We mothers do wonder what in the world we were thinking when we pictured perfect little families with children who ate the way they were supposed to, and slept when they were supposed to, and never dared misbehave. And we mothers that feel this way are normal! And it is ok to have these feelings. And it is ok because we do have those moments in between the craziness when everything is perfect and we are overwhelmed with love for our children and it gives us the little glimpse of hope we need to get us through the difficult times.

This weekend I finally felt validated. And I finally felt like I wasn't alone in my feelings that I'd had for the past 3 and a half years. I finally felt like I wasn't the only one, and I am, actually, normal.