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A very good friend of the family told my husband some words when we were pregnant. He said, “Ok, now you are pregnant. There is no going back. Parenting is like falling in a river – sink or swim.”
This is your position now. Imagine standing at the edge of a river. The river runs by you, and now somebody is going to just push you in. Soon, you will be falling in the air… falling down without the ability to reverse course. You have two choices now. The first choice is going along with the river. Learn to swim with the current and let the river help you go. Sometimes you will be able to just float and enjoy the view around you: beautiful flowers, animals, days full of bright sun and nights full of stars. There will be some rocks along the way and sticks that can get in your way. However, you will feel the power of the water and flow on with the river.
Your second choice will be to swim hard against the river and fight it. You will have to be very strong and do whatever you can to save yourself. Just fight, grab logs to help you, try to get to the side and get out. You will end up tired and frustrated. You will have horrible nights and stressful days. You choose.
That is parenthood. Nobody told us how it was going to be. Ok, they kind-of told us, but you really don’t understand until you are there. We imagined the fun times together having family dinners, playing in the backyard, and traveling around the world.
Nobody told you your body was going to transform physically and emotionally. Nobody told you that you will have to hold it together when your child screams next to you and another one waits to be fed while you just have 3 hours of sleep – all while wearing your dirty workout clothes and you haven’t taken a shower in 2 days.
Nobody told you you were going to love like crazy and see through those peaceful beautiful eyes. Nobody told you how vulnerable you would be; that you were going to be scared, VERY scared if something ever happened to that little human being.
So you choose, you choose to let the river take you and enjoy the ride or fight it. But just remember every time you fight it that you are fighting a power much deeper, more powerful and more important than you are. (You are wasting your energy and there is just one life… just saying!)