Room to Grow

When I was younger and thought about becoming a parent, I was confident. I knew I'd be patient and loving and have the tools I needed to nurture and discipline and help our children grow into amazing adults. When I became a mother, I began to see things differently.
It's not that I don't have patience. It's that I didn't realize how very much that patience could be stretched. That it could be lost, completely and utterly lost. And that I could find it again. I discovered that patience is an intentional, cultivated practice. I learned that becoming more patient required a tenacious, passionate love. I found that patience was an incredible gift that I could give not only to my children, but also to myself.
Having children showed me how critical I was of myself and others. How I expected perfection and became quite angry when I didn't live up to it. As life unfolded and my children and I grew, so often the realities of our lives together did not match up to my ideals, my vision, and I found myself disappointed, disgruntled, and distraught with us all. Somehow, I believed, if I worked hard enough, if I read the right books, was disciplined enough or strong enough, if my children were good enough, the ideal family life I envisioned would happen. My children would be as I had dreamed them to be, and all would be right with the world.
Years later, after so many tears, struggles, fits and fusses (mostly mine!), I discover some beautiful and wonderful truths. My ideas of perfect are not perfect, nor are they necessary. My children are amazing and wonderful, challenging and fascinating, and not at all what I had imagined or expected. They are their own small people, growing and blossoming into what they were meant to be. I am learning that the true beauty in parenting these children comes not in molding them into my image, or the some other image, but in discovering the delightful surprises of who they are.
Patience is a gift. I began this journey of parenting believing this gift was given to my children out of love. I found that my children have blessed me by taking that gift, stretching it and returning it to me to use on myself. As I learn to treasure the messy, imperfect, incredible experience of watching them grow, I begin to treasure that same journey within myself. I gift myself with patience when I lose it. When I'm too tired to respond as I'd like to as a mom. When I make mistakes, or don't know, or find yet another little way in which I see that I have room to grow.