A Lenten practice of letting go
It’s 3:45pm on a Monday afternoon. My 3.5 year-old just fell asleep on our way to a park. My 7 week-old also asleep in the backseat.
It’s finally quiet.
Apart from their little snores and grunts. Which I am glad to hear these days over the meltdowns and tears that come with all the adjustments from all of us as we navigate this wildly wonderful life with a newborn and 3 year old.
It’s Holy Week this week. We missed Palm Sunday yesterday because the service started at 10am rather than our 11am usual time. I can’t keep up with things like I used to these days. I hope and pray we make it to church this Easter Sunday.
I’m on maternity leave right now with my little boy, Jack. I’m seven weeks in and it’s been everything at once. When I say everything, I truly mean everything.
Our first 6 weeks were filled with some of our most precious moments. Time on the couch and enjoying all the baby snuggles… and then all of the other wild and crazy things that come with having a newborn.. and a 3 1/2 year-old at the same time (sleep depravation, tending to tantrums while nursing, painting sticks while holding a baby, etc.)
Currently, we’re in the middle of another big transition as we just took my daughter out of daycare. AH!
I have a close friend who will be watching my two kids when I am back in the office working part-time hours (thank goodness for this!). But little did I know how crazy life would feel as we navigate all of these transitions all at once.
My daughter is figuring out her way this week. There’s no daycare schedule to keep her on track, and I’m nowhere near having a schedule for myself and Jack. I’m trying to help my little girl transition while I, too, am transitioning into this life with 2.
I’m parenting big tantrums and big BIG feelings while trying to tend to my baby at the same time. My attention is split and I fight feelings of not enoughness and thoughts of “I did that wrong” every day.
It’s a season I love and a season that I wish was different in the same way. I had glamorous ideas of what my maternity leave would look like, and some of that has just been shattered by the realities of going from 1 kid to 2, in addition to some other life stressors and baggages I’m trying to navigate and shake.
It’s been so wonderful, and so hard.
Both can really be true at once.
This morning, I went on a walk in our double stroller around our neighborhood. It was a walk where I let out all the tears while my kids were content enjoying all the trees. Thank the Lord for double strollers. I would not survive without them.
I cried out all my messy hormones still settling, the stress of a big morning tantrum because I didn’t give her a whole banana, and the fact that things just were not going the way I hoped.
After getting out all the tears, I pondered how much of my distress these days comes from the expectations that just can’t be met.
Expectations that I thought I could meet but just can’t.
Feelings I don’t want to have but I do.
And then, I heard a little quiet voice inside inviting me to let it go this Holy Week.
To just let go of my way.
To stop chasing a vision of what I want life to be right now and to just be with what is.
To not force a feeling, or become resentful when a feeling I want is not there. Instead, to surrender, to truly surrender myself in this whole experience. To release the “shoulds” and to just ride the waves, wherever they will take me.
To just be where I am in this moment, knowing that there’s no right or wrong way to feel or be.
To let go of control, and give the rest of this maternity leave to the God who works all things together for good.
It feels better when I just let go.
