As It Gets Harder, It Gets Easier

I wrote the following two weeks ago and never hit publish. I don't know why, I think I got distracted and I'm not sure my head is attached to my body these days. Even still, it all rings true...

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As it gets harder, it almost gets easier.

My memory of a life without kids is distant and so far away. I remember the days of sleeping for twelve hours in a row and watching TV more than I should, but the young gal who did such things seems like a person I do not know. It seems like I've lived in this pattern of sleep and no sleep and wiping and fixing and helping and cooking and serving for an eternity.

And in some ways, it makes it easier.

I've been here before. I've done this a few times. I'm confident in caring for a baby and it doesn't seem hard, but rather nostalgic in some strange way. And, so, while it can feel like there are a lot of children at my house - when really there's only three - it's somehow getting easier while simultaneously getting harder. I'm pulled in so many different directions that it seems like there could be ten children living here and it wouldn't be any harder than it is now (okay, scratch that. I just imagined ten kids in my house and my head almost exploded).

The confidence that comes from being a somewhat-seasoned parent is calming and comforting. I've been at this thing for almost eight years and I have no idea how that even happened. I blinked and the time is gone. Perhaps that is what makes it easier - the realization that this all happens so, so fast. Sure, there are hard days, but soon a new day will come. And that day might be hard too, but it will be hard in a different way and things are never boring.

Just when you think you've got things figured out, you don't. 

And, so, I sit here and try to enjoy it all. Sure, my to-do list is the same list that I had sitting on my counter two weeks ago. Yes, I kind of feel like I'm running a marathon on a treadmill every single day. And it's hard.

But as it gets harder, it somehow gets easier. Perhaps because I cannot remember what easy looks like. And, really, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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And that do-to list? Yep, still the same one. Things added, things crossed off.

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