Rock Candy

Someone told me recently that I sugarcoat this whole parent thing.  Like I walk around acting like it's all just hugs and kisses and warm fuzzy days at the zoo.  I was kind of surprised.  I'm pretty sure I'm a first-rate complainer!
But the truth is that I really, truly, honestly do LOVE being a mom.
Some people were born wanting to be a pilot or an Olympic shot-put champion or something.  Taking care of kids is my thing.  I just like it.
I honestly also love staying home.  This gig indulges all my restless, easily bored character traits.  No two days are ever the same.  Guaranteed.
I like the freedom to decide what the day will hold, the ability to change plans at the last minute and run off to the park on a nice day or snuggle under blankets with hot chocolate on rainy ones.  It's a luxury to be able to be able to stay with my child 24-7 and ferry Her to appointments if She's sick, without having to ask permission, scramble to find someone else to do it, or worry that I'll get into trouble for missing work. 
I like that if the garden needs weeding or the maintenance guy will be here between 9 and forever o'clock no one has to stress about it, because I can be here.  I LOVE the ability to Be Here, whenever I need or want to, beholden to nothing.
I love feeling like I'm not missing any more moments that I have to. I like that my job involves tea parties and impromptu dancing.
It isn't for everyone.  But it fits me pretty well.  I adore the hugs and the tiny socks turning up in random places and the constant running commentary from the backseat.  I love the tantrums and the boogers and the shriveled raisins on the floor of the car.  I really do.
I think the total unpredictability of a life with children is fun.  Like a roller-coaster is fun, like a room full of wrapped presents is fun, like a road trip without GPS is fun.  I like the adventure of being a parent. 
I imagine that an Olympic shot-put champion thinks their job is fun, too.  I'd bet they like showing up to practice; that they look forward to stepping out when it's their turn in a competition.  They must love it, to put that much sweat and effort and thought and time and hope into hurling a disc.
Of course.  Just because they love it doesn't mean that it's easy.  I'll bet it takes a lot of work to be an Olympic shot-put champion.  I bet you get hurt a lot.  Your social life probably suffers.  It's probably hard to get out of bed for practice a lot of days.  It's probably really, really disappointing when you royally mess up and don't win.
I think that the more passionately we love a thing, the harder it is, in some ways. 
And so the truth is that even though I really, truly, honestly do love and enjoy being a mom, that doesn't exempt me from the fact (it is a fact) that being a mom is hard.
I imagine it's hard for everyone in different ways.  But in the interest of non-sugar-coated disclosure.

It's hard for me because of the worry.  Because of the continual, overwhelming worry that you will do the right things.  That the outside world will do wrong things.  It is emotionally taxing, all this fretting all the time.
It's hard because it requires effort.  Real, concentrated effort- but all the time, constantly, unendingly. The Doing of parenting if it lets up at all, does so only long enough to take a quick breath (not to catch your breath, just to suck a chestful in) and then it is back to the incessant trying of this job.  It is exhausting.
And it is hard because of the sacrifice.  Being a mother means closing your eyes and willing your fingers to loose their hold of things they have instinctively clutched for years and years. It means never again deciding anything based solely on what you want. It means taking so many dreams and goals and wishes- ones that have been precious to you as long as you remember- and wrapping them up in airtight bags, along with pieces of yourself that you once thought were too intrinsic to be separated from, and tucking them into a dark box.  Sliding it under the bed.
Maybe later. Maybe sometime, you will take a few out, polish them up, and put them to good use.  But a lot of them (maybe most of them, maybe even all of them) will just stay there.
Except for late rainy nights when you might peek in and run your glance over them before pushing them back towards the baseboards, they will stay hidden there until you pull them out with lumpy, gnarled hands.  One day when things have grown very still and very quiet around you.  And then you will turn them over in your fingers, surprised at which ones you had forgotten you placed there so long ago, and sighing over the ones you have missed so fervently each day since.
And then you take them with you.  Wherever it is we go after this life.  Maybe we get to use them there.  Or maybe they scatter into the air like star dust, and eventually drift down, and settle into other hearts. 
Motherhood is hard because it consumes you.
Like being swept up in turgid floodwater, like being sucked into a cyclone, like any other force of nature.  There is nothing you can do about it. Nothing you can reverse it with, no way to control it or undo its effects.  You can't put your heart and your life back the way it was before the moment you became a mother any more than you can repair the chasm left by an earthquake or return a mountain to its former self after it has erupted into a volcano.

I don't want to mislead anyone.  Being a mom is hard.  There are some days I just want to remember whether I've ever been anything but a mother. Some days I really miss the things I traded for this.  Some days I just really, really want one more chance to call in sick and sleep till 9 and stay in my PJ's reading a book all day.  Or go somewhere I can wear unnaturally high heels and something with a "dry clean only" label.

But for me, the truth is that being a mother is a lot like a shot-put champion who makes it to the Olympics, like the earth suffering a volcano to watch it become a paradise island, like going through the pain of labor and delivering a baby.  Hard and Worth It so often travel as a pair. 
I guess that's more sugar coating.
But the truth is...it's sweet.