I have never loved someone anymore in my whole entire life. I am not sure I even love my own mother the same way (sorry Mum). The love is fierce, deep, it swallows you whole asking you to be ONLY that love. It is wild and free and beautiful and expansive and your heart softens to that of a melted marshmallow.

We think that, when we find this, feel this, kind of love that it will fix everything. I am not sure we know we think that, but we do. We think it will be easy and without challenge and simple, peaceful. I wonder if maybe it is like that for others and I am defected.

Most days, I am consumed by this love and any want or need that is mine that isn’t met can be overshadowed easily and dissolved by this love without any resentment. But some days, like today, I feel trapped, I feel unworthy, I feel empty and I feel lost.

I feel like the worst mother because I am not able to be, the present, calm, wise, gentle speaking mother I had hoped to be.

I hate myself in this moment

If anything ever, god forbid, happened to him I would hate myself until the day I die for ever taking this for granted. I am trapped, in this cycle of love and blame and guilt and rage and resentment and happiness and joy and a messy house and clothes and zero control over my own life. It is the most beautiful, nontoxic way of being trapped that you can ever be, but some days it is overwhelming. And there is no one to talk to.

You are alone, you are isolated, you know 1000 other mothers, yet you couldn’t say this to them, you couldn’t actually express  just how screwed up you feel and how much you feel like a screw up as a mother.

And from the outside people see you, and you are juggling those balls so god damn beautifully without even blinking. You drop not one thing, you are careful and calculated and loving and warm and they say “wow, she is an amazing mother”.

Inside .. every.single.ball.drops. and you are drowning, keeping yourself afloat ever so slightly, head just above water holding on tightly to every practice you have ever practiced that made you feel better, every affirmation you ever repeated that felt good in your body, every kind word you would speak to a friend that might just be enough for you to feel a bit better. Clinging.

My feet never feel grounded, I am running a race with no end, I am sweating, I am nervous and I am consumed by this weight. I never feel enough.

I want it to feel light and easy and some days it does and my god those days are a breeze, but lately they have been few and far between.

And I don’t even think its motherhood, I think it’s everything else I have to or want to do. See, if I have no wants, no expectation no needs then there would be no frustration and I think as a mother maybe we are genuinely meant to let all of them go, we are not meant to be anything but “mother”, just for them and hand everything else over. I feel selfish for not knowing how. I did it for a while, it felt easy, but the more I do it the worse I feel ,as though I am doing us both a disservice in some way. I know he needs a strong mother, he needs me to be me, but how can I be, if I also need to just be for him?

The constant push pull, me trying to find space to see ”who am I now” and still in some way be who I was, searching for comfort, whilst also becoming and being the mother he needs.

Motherhood is the most glorious thing in the world, but the above words feels like a dirty secret that no other mother would dare to say. So the shame of this weighs even heavier. We bite our tongue, living in fear that it could all get taken away if we are so ungrateful for mentioning the challenges faced in this transition.

The isolation is the worst part, and I know others feel the same. But we say nothing, as we pass each other at the park.

Is it the society we live in? Where I have to be the working women and mother and friend and daughter and lover and not complain one bit of how little we have left to just be ourselves?

It is totally up to me, I know that, I am the only one that can change this pattern, at least in my own world, but that is a heavy task in itself.

I just want to be mum, mumma, mother. Patient at all times, conscious, kind and warm, present.

Will my honestly and vulnerability on this subject be the thing to set me free? I am not sure, but I will try anything at this point.

Doctors will call this post partum depression, prescribe pills, perhaps in the hope that if they numb me well enough I will shut up, fall in line, not speak of the difficulties.

I am not depressed, I am struggling, I am challenged and I am carrying the weight of motherhood, walking solo alongside all the other Mumma’s that feel the same. We are not defected, we are tired and we need to be held and seen and heard.

These words rage quietly inside me and I know it will shift, I will move out of this feeling, I will “get better” but I hope that if any other mumma’s out there are reading this, they know they are not alone in the “darkside” of motherhood. I stand with you in my energy and hold you close to my heart, whilst I do the same for myself. I see you, I hear you.

And whilst I write of the dark , I am no longer afraid, because I know, as always, it is here to show me, when the light cracks through just how much I am able to endure and remain standing strong, resilient, empowered with an open, soft, marshmallow heart and I hope I can learn to love myself through it all. The same way I love him, without condition, even in the dark.