I am a glass half full kind of person. I like to think the best of a situation, focus on the positives, see potential and get really excited about things. While I am not like this all the time outwardly, this is the mindset I yearn to live in. I like to plan, anticipate, be hopeful and have things to look forward to. This works out well for me when things go as planned but can set me up for failure when they don't.
Matthew on the other hand, by nature, is a glass half empty kind of person. I don't say this to make a point that one is better than the other, because one isn't, I just say it to show that we approach life from different viewpoints. Matthew's educational background in accounting and life experiences have taught him a mindset of plan for the worst, set low expectations, don't get your hopes up, be conservative. It would be better to aim low and come in higher than aim high and undershoot a goal.
Real life example to illustrate this point...
We hear of a family vacation being planned. Rachael says YES!, starts researching on the Internet about said vacation, looks into plane tickets, takes PTO, and mentally gets stoked about going somewhere when in actuality we have not even committed to going. Matthew says WE WILL SEE, dismisses the thought until Rachael brings it up again, then doubts PTO will be available, wonder what work will look like then, how that fits into our budget and what obligations we have.
If we get to go on this trip I will still be pumped and Matt will work up his excitement in the day or two right before we leave and we will have a great time. If we don't get to go, I am poopy pants and mope around while he goes on with life as usual. Then I may even get a little mad at him for not being more let down like me....silly.
So having the kind of mindset that I do, I think I came into motherhood with extremely high expectations. It was what I wanted all my life after all. It was what I saw modeled to me by my own stay at home mom. It was what I journaled about, prayed about, dreamed about for years. Even when I wasn't ready to take it on in the early years of our marriage, I knew someday I would have a lot of kids and enjoy great relationships with them. I had a very rosy outlook on motherhood. This was tempered by my realistic view of babies/children. I think because I knew of the crying, disciplining, nurturing, and struggles that kids come with I sort of overlooked how much my own life would change and focused mainly on what kids would be like.
Now having half a year of motherhood under my belt, I am examining my heart. It is still hard for me to look at my life and see just how much it has changed since Rowan has been born. What did I do with myself before she came along? How did I fill my days before making baby food, cleaning diapers, breastfeeding, stacking blocks, reading books and chasing a crawling 7 month old around the house.Oh yea, that's right, I did whatever I wanted and it was great. But it didn't include Ro, which is the greatest thing about my life now most days.
What I have come to accept is that she is painfully making me a less selfish person and teaching me to prioritize life a little better. I fight this change often; wishing for more sleep, more alone time, more friend time, more Matt time. In the middle of the struggle I can feel overwhelmed, frustrated, impatient, and even cynical. I think those emotions all stem from my fallen expectations. I set the bar high and I came in under. However, I am finding that "under" is not a bad place at all, just a more realistic one. If there was a 1-10 scale of how great being a parent was, I aimed at 12 and landed on 8.5. (Matt probably aimed at a 6 and got 8.5). Some days are totally a 12 and live up to every dream I had but others can be much lower on the scale if we can be honest. The score doesn't have everything to do with Rowan either. She is a great baby overall, we have been blessed truly. The score has more to do with me adopting motherhood as part of my identity. I don't like experiencing all those negative emotions so I have been working to be content with my 8.5 average, even excited about it. I'm trying not to mourn the loss of the unrealistically unsustainable 12 and instead remain hopeful in God's plan for my life.
As hard as being a mom can be sometimes, I know that God is using this for my good. Motherhood makes me die to myself daily, choosing God's way instead, something that my soul resists with or without Ro. It is a theme our church has been discussing since the start of the new year and the topic of the book Matt and I are reading for Lent. Clearly God is wanting me to take a hint and reflect on what it means to take up the cross and die to my own selfish ways of living life. Embracing the gifts of my new life as a mother, not dwelling on the struggles - following Christ's lead to be so filled with love that there is no room for anything else.
"Discipleship is more than turning over a new leaf. It is more fitful and disorderly than gradual moral formation. Nothing less than daily, often painful, lifelong death will do. So Paul seems to know not whether to call what happened to him on the Damascus Road "birth" or "death" -
it felt like both at the same time."
-William Willimon
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