More Than Just A Hobby
It’s 6 am and I’m typing frantically while the coffee brews, knowing that my toddler will come out of his bedroom, sleepy eyes and hair askew, any minute now. My mind is usually clearest in the morning, before a day of epic toddler tantrums and washing endless pump parts. I’ve been up since the wee hours of the morning, pumping and feeding the baby and sneaking in a quick shower, switching out my nighttime sweatpants for my daytime sweatpants (because stay-at-home mom life, amiright?). Writing is somewhat of a newer hobby for me. It was always one of my strengths in school, as opposed to the many required math and science courses I took while getting my nursing degree. But it hadn’t ever been something I thought I would pursue.
When I saw a posting in the summer of 2020, seeking volunteer writers for a local parenting blog, I’m not sure what made me pause and even consider applying. I had no professional writing experience.
Writing something and sharing it publicly was way outside of my comfort zone. But during one of the longest and hardest seasons of my life, it somehow ended up being exactly what I needed.
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I remember the moment motherhood got easier for me. I was in my kitchen, just six months prior to applying for that volunteer writing position, listening to a podcast I had just discovered. The Coffee + Crumbs podcast to be exact. My son was about to turn one and whew, it had been quite a year for us. I struggled with breastfeeding and pumping and many of the “normal” things new moms struggle with. My son had eczema and trouble gaining weight. I also became a stay-at-home mom that year, putting my career on the back burner so I could be home with my son - a decision that I thought was an easy one, but that turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. Additionally, my son had an anaphylactic reaction at just six months old and was then diagnosed with several severe food allergies, a diagnosis that has turned our lives upside down. Needless to say, it had been a year. And as much as I loved my sweet boy, it took time to get used to my new role as a mom.
The podcast episode I was listening to was called Motherhood + Loneliness. I listened intently to the whole episode while making dinner and drowning out the sound of noisy baby toys in the background. I can remember actually nodding my head and thinking, yes that’s exactly it. There were other mothers who felt the same way that I did. I was stunned I had gone almost a whole year as a mother, thinking I was the only one who thought motherhood was hard. And feeling that way for so long had made me feel really alone.
According to a quick google search, there are roughly 2 billion mothers in the world. If there are 2 billion mothers in the world, why would any one of them ever feel like they are alone in thinking motherhood is hard? Why isn’t it commonplace to expose the struggles we face as mothers?
After a transformative hour of listening to this podcast, I went down the rabbit hole that is the internet. Turns out, Coffee + Crumbs wasn’t just a podcast. It’s a whole corner of the internet that exists solely to support moms. I began reading essay after essay that other mothers had written about the beautiful, heartbreaking, all-consuming job of motherhood. I really related to what I read, and quite honestly, it changed the trajectory of motherhood for me. It made me feel less alone. It made me realize that I wasn’t the only one who thought motherhood could be the most difficult, and yet most rewarding job in the world. Reading these words from fellow mothers inspired me and has helped me embrace and enjoy motherhood so much more.
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Over the past year and a half, writing has become kind of a therapeutic hobby for me. And it has become almost a scrapbook of words documenting these early years of motherhood. There are just so many memories and moments that I want to remember and writing is a way to document these seemingly ordinary days as a mom. Taking the leap and applying for that writing position has been one of the best things I could have done for myself. It motivated me to explore a new hobby and even inspired me to start a blog of my own.
I’m 3 months postpartum with my second child and it’s so different this time around. It’s not that it’s not hard. It is of course. I have two young children who need so much of me and it’s completely draining some days. My son still has food allergies, and I’ve found myself exclusively pumping yet again due to my daughter having many of the same issues my son had. But knowing that it’s okay for things to feel hard, expected even, and that other women experience the same hard things has made a huge difference for me.
***
So here I sit, at my kitchen counter willing the coffee maker to hurry up, trying desperately to get my thoughts out before the sun comes up and the chaos of the day begins. Because while having two young children gives you plenty of material to write about, it doesn’t exactly afford you the time or energy to get much of that material out of the confines of your mind. Most days writing often ends up low on the priority list and a lot of the time doesn’t even make the list. Much of what I write is done at the bathroom sink in the morning, Google drive open, typing out phrases in between applying mascara and brushing my teeth. Most days I wonder if it even matters. Will anyone relate to what I write? Will people like it? Will people even read it? Am I just wasting my time?
I hope that if my kids read my writing one day, they’ll get a sense of how much I loved them. How much I loved every day with them. How much I loved being their mom.
And if what I write can make one mom feel less alone, like the words from other mothers have done for me, I have to believe that it matters.
