The Mother I Thought I Would Be

Maybe this is the part I am most afraid to say out loud, because I never want my boys to someday read these words and mistake my grief for regret.

There has never been a single moment where I do not love being their mother.

I love them with a depth that rearranged me permanently. Completely. They are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. They are laughter in the backseat, little hands reaching for mine, sleepy faces in the morning light, tiny voices yelling “mom” from another room. They are the best parts of my life walking around outside of my body.

And still, somewhere underneath all of this love, there is grief too.

Not grief for motherhood itself, but grief for the mother I thought I would be.

Because I truly believed I would carry motherhood differently. I thought I would enter it still fully myself somehow. I thought I would be that same wild-hearted, deeply alive girl, just with children beside her now. I imagined them growing up watching me paint while dinner simmered on the stove, watching me laugh loudly and dance barefoot in the kitchen and disappear into creative little worlds while teaching them to do the same. I imagined loading them into my old car and driving with the windows down and showing them horses and mountains and bookstores and hidden places. I imagined motherhood expanding me, not burying me.

I wanted them to know her.

The version of me that felt light and electric and endlessly alive.

And maybe that is the ache I cannot quite explain correctly. The unbearable feeling that my children are getting a version of me that is far more exhausted, far more anxious, far more weighed down than the woman I hoped they would know. Not because I do not love them enough, but because life became heavier than I anticipated. Because somewhere between survival and responsibility and pressure and heartbreak and constant expectation, I became tired in a way that settled into my bones.

And God, I wish I had more of myself to give them.

Not more love. Never more love. I would tear myself apart for them willingly.

I just wish they knew the woman I used to be before the world convinced her to shrink into survival mode all the time. I wish they could know the version of me that laughed easier, dreamed bigger, wandered more freely. The woman who moved through life with sunlight in her chest instead of weight tied to her ankles.

Because I think they would have loved her too.

But even inside of this grief, there is something I know with absolute certainty: my boys will never carry it for me.

This ache belongs to me, not to them.

No matter how heavy life feels some days, I will still wake up every morning and make their world beautiful. I will still dance with them in the kitchen, kiss scraped knees, make holidays magical, stop to watch sunsets, say yes to ice cream, laugh at their jokes even when I am tired, and make sure their childhood feels safe and warm and full of love. They will not grow up burdened by my sadness. They will not feel responsible for the parts of me I am still trying to find again.

Because they deserve a childhood untouched by the grief their mother quietly carries inside herself.

And truthfully, this is not my every day.

Lately, maybe. Recently, yes. But not forever.

I still have so many good days. Days where I laugh until I cry. Days where I feel hopeful and soft and grateful for this life. Days where I catch glimpses of myself again in the middle of ordinary moments. And deep down, underneath all of this heaviness, I think I know something important:

I am not gone.

Not really.

And I think one day, slowly, gently, piece by piece, I will come back to myself. Not exactly as I was before, because life has changed me too deeply for that now, but maybe as someone fuller. Someone softer. Someone who has carried grief and still found her way back to joy.

And when that happens, my boys will be there to witness it.

They will know her after all.