Summer vacation has arrived! With minimal time to catch my breath over the last few weeks of school, I was definitely ready for a little break in the schedule. I’ve always loved summer. I have forever been a big fan of the long days, warm nights and relaxed attitude towards the everyday that comes with the season. But there is now a sense of dread intertwined with the excitement that I feel as summer approaches.
You and me, we are different. In so many ways, we are different. That in itself is not unique to our situation. From Starbucks orders to philosophies on life and everything in-between, finding a fellow female who checks off all the same boxes that you do would be an impossible task. Even so, there is something about our contrasting physical abilities that seems to set apart my mom life from yours. Early on in my injury that rift between your motherhood and mine felt as wide as an ocean. But as time progressed, I realized that rift–and our differences–is actually minor and insignificant. I think that as human beings, and as mothers, we are more alike than you may realize.
Like every mother, I grew in to my role as ‘Mommy’. It’s a role every one of us plays differently and most days it would be a hell of a lot easier if it were scripted. But whether we are handed a tiny newborn, taking the hand of a skeptical toddler or welcoming a child or teen into our life, we all become ‘Mom’ pretty quickly after meeting our children. Thankfully we don’t need to know everything right away. We learn and develop as our children do and there is a comforting feeling, a feeling of home, in our own little family’s routines, expectations and traditions. It becomes natural, automatic, familiar and ‘ours. It becomes our motherhood; it becomes our children’s childhood.