everyone tried to warn me. tried to articulate the extreme tensions & intense emotional spasms that were on my horizon when i first got pregnant. 'don't worry' they said. 'don't worry. you may never wear anything but pajamma pants for the rest of your life but you'll survive'. but i wouldn't listen. i thought they were all neigh-sayers & negative nellies trying to rob the most glorious fairy tale that the experience would be for me.

they weren't wrong. but they weren't right either.

parenting is not for the faint of heart nor the weak of will. it is the most difficult thing i will ever cultivate in my life. it is so intrinsically apart of me now that i cannot separate when it ends & i begin.

initially, with my flippantly, overconfident first-timer attitude, parenting was something i wore on the outside. a mostly exterior experience that fit into a neat & tidy compartment. something i did & was, just by rights of having a child. something i could still idealize with, flaunt & control. and then i had the twins & parenting tried to creep into the deepest of depths of my soul. it found things in there that i didn't even know existed. it started messing with all my emotions & leaking all over my leg in seepy, soiled diapers, darkened the bags under my eyes. it came skulking for me in the night.  taunting me sometimes all day & all night with the need for change. and then the utter chaos of parenting overtook me entirely with the birth of my last cherished babe.

they weren't wrong to warn me. but they weren't right either. i will not be merely a survivor of parenting like the rest of the lot. the long days & dark night aren't just there to survive... they are there as a gift of growth. like a spur in my tender side, they are there to train & test me into thriving, not just as a parent, but as a great many things. for what is parenting but pursuing transformation & change in the heart of every untouched, hidden emotion & motivation. it has been the greatest audit & inventory i have ever know.

never has there been such a universal experience that so adamently demands the brand of patience made out of wrought iron and holiness produced from so much flesh purging. but i am resolute that the gut wrenching contraction upon contraction of excruciatingly monotony of everyday pandemonium in familial life will give birth to something in me. i am nothing that i thought i was at the start. i fall short everyday of the woman i want to be. the woman i can & will be one day. but that is what why the determined will see the fruit of their labours.

it's like panning for gold. scatter amount the debri of everyday chaos is sprinkled gold dust. hidden in the burnt boiled egg dinner disaster is a little treasure of who i am & who they are becoming.

and i wouldn't miss that adventure for the world. :)
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