Mom Diary | A tale about three river shells.
On motherhood and choosing to be more present.
Sometimes it is necessary to live seemingly ordinary and everyday moments that will remind us that these moments are the greatest of them all. For some evenings now, we have been recharging ourselves by swimming in the river and playing little games in the sand. For some time now, I've felt how hard it is to not think about everything that might be more important than cycling to the river. It's hard not to have a million and one tasks running through your head and want to give up on the idea of a river bath. But the point is that no task was more important. And I realized that only when I saw him, my tiny human, sitting calmly and thoughtfully on a piece of a stranded tree and holding his little hands tightly while watching shiny waves. He, so small on that big piece of tree in front of such a big world. In that moment I realized why I got on that bike and chose this path. I realized why I didn't stay to clean the kitchen and mop the floors. I chose what brings real value to me. Everything else can be reached later.
Let's face it. Guilt for not cleaning kitchen, not mopping the floors, not doing laundry or some big dinner will probably always flicker somewhere in my mind. But that's it. It is in my mind. And I have ability and will to choose something more important to me. To move away from that guilt and those thoughts. To set some boundaries even for myself. We, as parents, mothers, are here to allow ourselves and our children to adopt a slower pace of life. And to not looking us rushing and being under stress all the time. I realized I don't want to be afraid of how I spend my days, especially with my child. I don't want to flip through these pages of life, his life and create some fast childhood for him. I don't want to sit on this floor some years from now and feeling regret for not being there, on that riverbank. I know I can find the courage to do things differently, to make these mundane moment most glorious, humbling, heart-filling moments. You can’t plan those miraculous moments.
So I slowed down. We walked along the riverbank holding hands tightly. I found tiny, dark brown shells and put them in his blue bucket. I made a pond in the sand and watched my little one excitedly and curiously throw pebbles into it. And I was grateful. So grateful. Grateful because I can live this mundane life. Those seemingly ordinary little moments. Moments that I will always carry with me, moments that just now became memories. They became a story. His and mine little story. The story I will tell him some years from now, with these three tiny shells in my hands, as well as the moments, on that sunset-colored shore.