Labor Pains

Thursday. Maybe you woke up that morning and thought, "Hey, it's Thursday. I wonder who's gonna get voted off Survivor tonight?..."

Me? "It's Thursday. Ugh, that means 5 miles today. Crap."

Training for a Marathon...again. What on earth was I thinking? That phrase goes through my head at least a dozen times while training. Especially the first two miles, which notoriously are the worst part of any run, but still. I like to complain about it. It feels like my muscles are laced with lead, and I start to wonder if I somehow cloned myself in that moment and my clone was walking next to me, who would be faster? I try and not dwell on that for too long, in fear of the answer.

I have often compared training and running a marathon to pregnancy and childbirth. Hear me out.

Your first pregnancy is full of unknowns. You know you should be afraid...just not exactly sure of what. You are able to give detailed accounts to your doctor about how you have felt each month, what was strange, what's been helping, what hasn't. You read whatever you can get your hands on about pregnancy and birth because knowledge is power. Everything is a first, so you cross the hurdles like a champ because it's almost exciting to have your first bout of morning sickness, or your first restless night. They're not pleasant, but bearable because it's exciting and new.

Fast forward to pregnancy number 2, (or marathon 2 if you're following the analogy). Enough time has passed since the reality check that was labor and life with a newborn, and you look at the sweet sticky face of your darling toddler and think, "Oh, he/she is so precious, remember when they were born, how wonderful and amazing that was? Wouldn't it be great to have another one?"

That euphoria lasts somewhere between the stick turning blue and that first wave of nausea that hits like a Mac truck. And it's around this same moment that the darling toddler that so inspired you has decided he wanted to see what would happen if he flushed his shoes down the toilet.

If you're me, you collapse on the couch and think to yourself: Sweet fancy Moses, what have I done to my life??

This time you know what's coming. In short, you know what to be afraid of, and it scares the living daylights out of you.

Are you still following? Well, keep reading anyway.

There's a moment a little more than halfway through a run where all the sudden I feel lighter. Stronger. Steadier. It almost takes me by surprise because up to this moment all I could think about was how bad I was doing. My heart lifts, I take a breath and realize I'm breathing easy. For awhile, my mind is clear and my body feels strong and I get a glimpse at the runner I could be. The runner that, heaven willing, I'm becoming. I start to remember why I even try in the first place. At that moment I'm almost giddy when I think that perhaps I'm not the worse runner in the history of the world.

Many times as a parent I struggle with my inadequacies. Several times a day in my brain I think: Seriously, could you be any worse at this??
Losing my patience, getting busted that I was only pretending to listen to some forever story about an earwig, getting mad at the child who ended up not doing anything wrong, forgetting that I put someone on timeout an hour ago and now have no memory of what it was they even did...

But every once in awhile, without even realizing it, I'm having a great moment with my kids. We're laughing and being silly, or someone is snuggling up to me on the couch. Maybe Hannah is watching me put my makeup on and we can talk for a few minutes like girlfriends.

I get a glimpse of the Mom I could be. The one that heaven willing I will be.

So we do these big crazy things..run marathons, have families what have you, because as hard as it is at times, if we keep trying, we get those moments that prove we're not complete failures-- and it really is amazing. I think it's what keeps us pushing through the challenge of it all. That small proof that life is great and we're better at it than we think.