ROAR.
There’s a powerlessness that comes when our baby is sick and there’s nothing we can do but hold them in our arms and kiss their tears away.
ROAR.
There’s a sense of sadness as we hand our children over to someone else to care for them while we go to work each day.
ROAR.
There’s frustration in constantly feeling like there isn’t enough of us to go around and somehow, everyone and everything is getting our leftovers.
ROAR.
There’s an unrelenting need to keep all the balls in the air at all times and a disheartening reality that we are human and it’s impossible to maintain that level of responsibility 24/7.
ROAR.
There’s what sometimes feels like a lifetime of sleep deprivation.
ROAR.
There’s a desire to protect our babies and keep them safe from a cruel, scary world and the knowledge that we won’t be able to forever.
ROAR.
There’s a need-a requirement even- for just a few minutes of silence and peace, yet no space to find it, even within our own minds.
ROAR.
There’s overwhelming pride we feel when our children hit a new milestone or learn a new skill. When we look at them and realize our babies aren’t such babies anymore and they’re doing things on their own, needing us less and less.
ROAR.
Everything we are and everything we aren’t, motherhood highlights it all.
ROAR. ROAR. ROAR.
So if you growl under your breath sometimes like I do, even if your roar expresses itself differently than mine, maybe cut yourself a break and realize that moan isn’t just you coming to the end of yourself because you can’t handle any more or you’re failing as a mother. It’s just the sound of your inner lioness. The growl of love pulled from the corners of your spirit from all you do and all you are.
It’s the roar of motherhood.
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” – Maya Angelou
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This post originally appeared at Three Boys and a Mom.
