Those carefree days of freedom seem like a dream. When you were easily arranging to meet up with your friends. You could enjoy a relaxing evening with your man, going out for a drink. When you could talk on the phone with your best friend, without being interrupted. And the only thing you cared about was your job. All those repetitive daily habits, as well as your constant interactions with the others that organized and formed your daily life, changed from one day to another. It’s like you were being transferred to a different reality, full of unprecedented experiences and situations. When you become a mom, it is the most important change in your life. It creates a new set of daily habits. A new life, completely different from the one you used to live. It changes you as a person.
The truth is that….
Your social life comes second, due to motherhood. Your free time is significantly limited. The physical stamina decreases, you get easily tired due to countless chores and lack of continuous sleep. Your mood goes through a lot of fluctuations. You are overwhelmed by a wave of unique and mixed emotions. While in your attempt to adjust to the new situation and do everything right, you are distancing yourself from everyone and everything.
Especially, if you are the first one of your friends who had a baby, you start to feel cut off from the rest of the world. Υour phone stops ringing 10 times a day. Most friends forget you, because you aren’t that available anymore and don’t have that much in common. They don’t care to hear about how many times you wake up in the middle of the night, change diapers and feed your baby. Everything changes, nothing is the same.
The rest of your friends keep following their own schedule, without having motherly concerns in their heads. While you stay awake at nights. Do the laundry 3-4 times a day. Sterilise pacifiers and baby bottles, cook, clean. But most of all, you are trying to be the best mom for your child. You feel exhausted and sleepless. The walks on sunny days with a cup of coffee in your hands are a dream. There is no time for personal care. While it definitely would be quite encouraging, if you had your baby raised at the same period of time with some friend of yours.
It would help you not to feel alone and lost in this unique and “scary” journey, called motherhood. Scary, meaning that you enter into a new world, completely unknown to you, where you become responsible for a tiny life. No book, seminar, article or theory can prepare you one hundred percent about becoming a mother.
On the other hand, the personal experience with your own baby teaches you everything you need to know. While you never stop learning and discovering little secrets about children’s world, every single day and minute. You are constantly evolving as a mom, you become stronger, more experienced and more confident. You unfold the fearless mom you hide inside of you.
Through the insuperable exhaustion and melancholy that you may feel, you realize what completeness and happiness mean. The moment you sit in the quiet children’s room, in the peace of silence. You don’t hear voices, music, cars, absolutely nothing. The only sound that fills you with an endless love, is your baby’s wonderful breath when she sleeps. She needs you, she is a part of you, she loves you, she is happy when you touch her, because your touch is unique. She feels you, when you are present or absent, because you are her mom. It’s a pure true love. You acquire a strong and irreplaceable bond with your baby. All negative emotions are gone in seconds. Fatigue, worries, fears, nerves, all disappear at once.
The little creature that perches sweetly in your arms, generously fills your life with so much love, joy and innocence. She is really worth, every single minute you sacrifice from your freedom, your time, your sleep, your friendships and so much more, to raise her. Nothing can compare to this magical and unique experience. The scary becomes beautiful and the beautiful becomes wonderful.
The journey of motherhood might be hard and exhausting. It has got challenges, mistakes, stress and responsibilities. There are bad days, when you want to cry and give up on everything. You get distanced from several people. You miss your old life, before you became a mom. But believe me, it’s temporary. The emotional tautness that you feel at that moment will go away and will be replaced by beautiful memories. When the hard days are over, you will remember them with a smile on your face. Because, you will realize everything you will have accomplished by that time, performing your mother role perfectly, despite the imperfections.
There will be many good days as well. Especially, as your child gets older the everyday life will become easier. It will become more independent and compliant. You will rediscover yourself, your rhythms, you will make new friendships that will suit your motherly life. A new social life aligned with the “new you.” In addition, it will be even more fun to do everything with your kid. Time goes by so fast. In the future, you will miss all these days when you were holding your baby in your arms. You will miss her baby smell and her breath on your neck.
No matter how many children you are going to have, every beginning will be difficult and occasionally unbearable, but you’ll see everything get better.
So, it doesn’t matter that you aren’t there, when you see your friends gathered in a post on social media.
It’s ok, if you don’t get to drink that coffee with your best friend, in your favorite coffee shop.
It doesn’t matter that you don’t get to buy that divine black dress for your outings.
It’s ok, if you miss all the corporate events of the year.
And mostly, it’s ok being a mom.
Children fill each and every hour of your life. You move constantly, you do things that you didn’t do before you became a parent and you put their needs first. There are times that you drink your coffee cold, you haven’t got free time to read a book, be alone and spend some time with yourself , you never stop moving. Today, it’s the hunger, diaper change, crying, sleepless nights. Tomorrow, it will be the adolescence, arguments, activities, school grades, studies and more. An endless journey.
However, the greatest reward will always be your child’s unique love for you. She will tell you “I love you mom” and that magic phrase will remind you that all the difficulties are worth it, for the final result.
Nothing lasts forever, enjoy every moment of your mother life.
Be proud of what you have accomplished as a mom and woman.
Remember, you are not alone. There are millions “hero mothers” all around the world, who try their best every single day to be a good parent no matter what.
