I Get It Now.

I get it now. How hard parenting is and the many reasons why. It’s hard for different reasons and for the same universal reasons. I get it now. The reasons why my parents made the decisions and choices they made while raising my sister and me. I get the depth of those decisions and choices. I understand why to this day my mother never turns her phone off because it’s a 24/7/365 day. I understand why my dad would always “fall asleep” on the recliner in the living room waiting…when my sister and I started driving. As a kid I didn’t understand and even into my early adult years, it hadn’t clicked just yet. Parenting cuts you open and exposes you in the worst ways.

Becoming a parent has completely changed my perspective and views on life, the world. At the core of every decision are my two precious boys. I get it now. Parenting means to have your heart walk outside of your body and around the world; the most gut wrenching experience. In each stage of parenting your children gain small bits of freedom while you gain large bits of fear. Each stage is a slow, heartbreaking process of letting go. But isn’t that the whole point? We raise our babies to need us less and less and with each moment we hope our guidance is preparing them for the world; with each breath we hope they are more prepared than the moment before.

I get it now. Parenting is a slow dance of freedom and fear. Teetering towards freedom some moments of the day and other moments waltzing right into fear. I get it now. Parenting is a lived experience; it’s etched with many of those “you won’t know until you know” lines and it’s the truth. Reading others’ experiences with parenting and raising children can be helpful, entertaining even, but it’s not your experience, it’s someone else’s. It’s a “learn as you go” game and there are no playbooks for your experiences or children. It’s wild. The concept of parenting. We’re all out here just doing the best we can with what we have and are entrusted with other humans’ safety, security, and all requirements and responsibilities that come with parenting.

Do I make mistakes and say things to my children that I probably shouldn’t? Sure do, daily. But, I am human and I am still learning because parenting did not come with a playbook. I also apologize more than I ever have because I want my children to see what it is to make mistakes and say things that aren’t meant to be said and also know that there is room for forgiveness and redemption. I get it now. How to love someone unconditionally before ever meeting. I get it now. How your own flaws will smack you straight in the face and be the pile on the floor you crawl through when you’re picking your pride and ego off the ground.

I get it now. Our children are the greatest blessings and harshest teachers. I get it now. My children are the missing links. Sure, I was whole before my children but now I am whole in a different way; I’m rediscovering myself. Before children I didn’t know that my own flaws could have an impact on them, if left unchecked. My children have given me new lenses to view myself through; views that I had consciously and subconsciously avoided. Who wants to voluntarily uncover and confront the most uncomfortable parts of themselves? No one! I get it now. Parenting cracks you wide open and constantly leaves you exposed with open wounds.

I get it now. Parenting is the hardest thing I ever done but the most rewarding. I get it now. Nothing is more beautiful than little versions of you running around and seeing life through their eyes. I get it now.