It's October and my foot has now completely healed. I'm relieved and at the same moment... concerned. I've felt so alone for the past several months. It's actually been tiresome.
Motherhood is a journey that only a mother will only ever know. A journey you just can not fake. My partner, until she actually becomes a mother herself will never understand the journey of actually being a mother. It is a thankless and thoughtful job, moment after moment, day after day and week after week. A job so heavy and so hard that even she forgets to appreciate the mother I am.
Wife-hood is a thankless journey of selflessness. I realized this week, while I was standing doing the dishes for the umpteenth time that my foot no longer hurt. Yet I stood there for months and did the dishes while my foot agonized with screams of pain. I did the laundry, vacuumed, steamed the rugs, cleaned the house, gathered the trash, made lunches, made dinner, went grocery shopping, and raised my son, every moment of every day of every week, while my foot screamed at me in agony. Yet I do it now when my foot does not hurt. So, if I must do it all while I am in pain and I must do it every day with no pain, I feel sad to know that every day, is completely and utterly thankless as a wife.
Motherhood is different than wife-hood because as a mother, my son adores me. He gives me kisses when my eyes look sad. He hugs me and says gibberish that I can only laugh at. His laugh strikes my heart like a harp plays at a wedding and when I look at my son, I feel home. I feel completely relaxed and amazed when I hold my son. I have or hold no expectations of him. I know he will get into trouble and mischief. I know he will melt down and cry and fuss. I know the good with the bad and I adore it. I adore it all. It's part of my wonderful journey of motherhood.
Yet with a wife or a spouse, you hold expectations. You expect them, no matter how tired they are or how angry, sad or happy they are, to pitch in. To help you no matter the circumstance. To aide in your life and most importantly, to appreciate you. But what if they don't. If your spouse can not appreciate you and show you that appreciation within moments, days, weeks... then being their spouse is pointless. You're a single parent living with someone you used to adore. Someone you used to have moments with. Someone who used to appreciate you. Yet now... now that you do twice the work and double the love, you get less and less appreciation.
What if no one told you ever that you were doing a great job. What if no one ever helped do any of the chores around the house. What if their expectations of you, grew to do it all, to take care of them and the kids. To maintain a house and the bills. To do everything and never once be appreciated for doing any of it.
I believe you would wonder why you did it at all. Wife-hood that is.
I feel myself falling into a sea of depression. I feel myself wishing I was anyplace but here. I am beginning to realize I might just only have my son and he might just only have me because I will always refuse to fail or to give up. I will always appreciate him and his love. I won't ever be thoughtless or thankless.
Tuesday, while I stood doing the dishes, I realized my foot no longer hurt me to stand up on it. Yet tuesday I cried while I did the dishes because I realized for the last few months, my foot hurt like crazy while I stood and did the dishes. I cried because I realized that I did it all and I did it alone and I did it because I had to but I did it. I did it. I suffered through a broken foot and suffered while the bones fused themselves back together. I suffered and I stuck through the pain and I kept living and I kept at everything I so badly needed to get done and here it was, Tuesday, and the pain was actually gone. Yet as I stood there, I finally saw the real pain. The pain of doing it alone when you're not actually alone. When you live with someone and you are committed to someone and they have ignored your pain. They were thoughtless about your pain.
Tuesday I realized what I was fighting to see. Tuesday I realized I am a single parent. Now, I live my life like it is. I have to appreciate myself and I must thank myself in ways only I can. I must enjoy the journey of motherhood since it is only truly I who will enjoy it. Yet I need to let go of a part of me that refuses to be what I need.
Today is the start of a new day. Today is the start of a new month. I will take each day, one step at a time. It's an incredible walk I am on. We might not be walking 4.2 miles a day, but we're walking along on this journey of life.
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