Part-time Mother

This picture--like so many others I have--was sent to me by someone else. I didn't take it, because I wasn't there. They say a mother's love is the strongest force in the world, but so often this force is weakened by overwhelming waves of guilt. Shame. Inadequacy.

I am a working, divorced mother--striving to provide the best I can. My children are only with me every other week, because I believe wholeheartedly that time with their father is just as important as time with me. I am among the lucky ones whose ex is a wonderful co-parent, equally involved as I. Often I make jokes about how awesome joint custody is--giving me tons of time without children--time to build a thriving, healthy relationship with my new husband. I say in jest that it's how everyone should do it. “You love your kids so much more when you aren't with them half the time.” I mask my heartache with humor...just as I always have. But really, it kills me. I die a little each day I don't see them. I feel like less and less of a mother each night I don't tuck them in. As much as I know my babies are well loved and well cared for by their father, and by their daytime caretakers, I am constantly plagued with gnawing, nagging guilt. A steady feeling of not being what I should for the ones I love the most. Not being the majority shareholder of their time. Not being the one to make their snacks during the day. Missing so much of their playtime and daily routines. Relying on secondhand recountings of their highs and lows--the characters or kingdoms they've created. I feel shame when talking to other mothers. I feel shame when I get a picture like the one above. I feel shame when my children accidentally call me by the wrong name. I feel shame when I wake, and shame when I lay my head down at night. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And it is robbing me of the joy and love possible during the precious time I do have with my little ones.

As part of my journey to become a whole, thriving woman, I have begun to work with my natural monthly cycles in order to understand when it's best for me to let go, or create, or rest, or strive. This month, as I entered a few days of darkness with the new moon, I allowed myself space and time to go in and sit with this shame. This guilt. This horrifying inadequacy. I wrapped my arms around it, and held it close. For two days, I took full measure of this place so dark with decay inside my soul. And then...I let it go. As my body purged the possibility of life, so I purged my spirit of the lives I could have had. Of the pain so acute at the loss of the nuclear family and idealized home. I cried. Wailed. Thought I would die. But….then, I didn't. I came through the darkness, turned around to take stock, and saw that it had been dispelled.

I am a mother. Doing the best that I can. Like so many before me. And I'm doing it beautifully. Beautifully real, perfectly flawed. I am exactly what my children need to become who they are destined to be. Their lives are exactly what was created in order to shape their callings. So--here's to the mothers out there, doing it all beautifully. The single mothers. The working mothers. The estranged mothers. The coparenting mothers. The depressed mothers. The grieving mothers. The exhausted mothers. Consider sitting with your guilt. Look it in the eye, and see it for what it is. Thank it for what it has taught you. And then maybe, just maybe, it can die in peace.