This morning I witnessed something that really spoke to me.

As I’ve mentioned before, each morning after we take the older boys to school, my daughter and I go for a morning walk. We usually take a trail surrounding a small lake at a nearby park, a bit of an escape into “nature” in our suburban jungle. Each morning we see ducks, squirrels, buzzards, an occasional turtle, and we typically visit the nearby koi pond to say “good morning” to the fish there. This morning, we had a little something to feed the ducks. My daughter was so excited. We walked all the way around the lake, passing some ducks who were resting or too far from the trail. But when my daughter saw a mother duck with her babies just a few feet off the trail, near the water’s edge, she insisted these were the ones we needed to feed.

So we got closer. My daughter threw out bit by bit to the family of ducks. I watched the mother duck inspect the first piece that came their way, then she allowed her babies to eat every subsequent morsel. My daughter, ever the just, kept throwing pieces directly to the mother duck. And the mother duck could have easily eaten any number of those throws. Instead she watched to make sure each and every one of her ducklings got some.

I can’t get that beautiful, selfless image out of my head.

Motherhood changes us, doesn’t it? It changes our purpose. It changes our priorities. It changes our perspective. Those babies, those miniature humans who depend on us for so much, tug at our souls. They remind us that we have more power, more strength, more abilities than we can even understand. And yet, with a single tear, they leave us feeling vulnerable, weak, and completely incapable.

I was raised by a woman who sacrificed immensely to provide for me. She worked a job she hated, day after day and year after year to provide basic needs and health insurance for her four children. She owned a wardrobe that mostly consisted of clothes given to her by well-meaning friends who were cleaning out their own closets. I could go on an on about the things she sacrificed for us. Trust me, she sacrificed a lot.

Motherhood and sacrifice are synonymous . We sacrifice our bodies. Our comfort. Our sleep. Our time.

My thoughts today are some I have been considering for years. What about our hobbies and dreams? How much sacrifice is required? How much must we place upon the altar of motherhood?

I am still figuring things out, but I think there is a huge difference between sacrificing some comfort or convenience and being expected to completely ignore who we are. In Dr. Julie Hanks’ book The Burnout Cure, she talks about how frequently women get burned out when their lives are devoid of the things that make them feel whole.

She suggests reflecting on things from your childhood that you loved to do (not things you had to do or even all the things you did, but the things you really loved). It may be things you always wanted to try as a kid but never got the chance. Once you have a list of several activities, consider ways you could incorporate some of those into your life now.

Here are some of mine:

• climbing (trees were my favorite, but I once climbed the side of our brick house…it didn’t end well)
• reading
• writing
• exploring
• singing
• hiking
• telling stories
• riding my bike

When I made this list several years ago, I realized that I was doing NONE of those things. Ever. I had mistakenly placed those on the motherhood altar, but you know what? It wasn’t benefiting anybody. It wasn’t a true sacrifice.

A true sacrifice is giving up something you love for the benefit of someone else. Like when you sacrifice sleep to care for a newborn. Or when you sacrifice eating out to help pay for your child’s needs.

But I was giving up all of the things I loved and it was benefiting no one.

Something had to be done.

It’s like in the US when you overpay your federal taxes: you file for a refund.

I got my refund.

I began reading again. I checked out books from the library. I downloaded books on my phone and iPad. I requested books as gifts for my birthday and Christmas. I made time to read, even if it was only a few minutes some days.

I applied for a scholarship to take a creative writing course from my alma mater. We were parents of 4, and I felt I couldn’t justify the expense of paying for the course. But I really wanted to write and I knew this course would push me in the right direction. When the letter came in the mail to congratulate me on receiving the scholarship, I cried. That letter carried a message of hope. I desperately needed to be writing. And I loved every minute of that class, even when I stressed through the final lessons just before the deadline.

I committed to sing in some choirs and volunteered to sing solos at church.

And suddenly, I felt human. I could be present for my children. I was (and still am) genuinely joyful.

In her book Becoming, Michelle Obama shares that her mother confessed to her later in life how every spring, she entertained thoughts of leaving. Leaving her husband. Leaving her family. Mrs. Obama didn’t ask for details. But she shares this beautiful insight:

“If you’ve never passed a winter in Chicago, let me describe it: You can live for a hundred straight days beneath an iron-gray sky that claps itself like a lid over the sky. Frigid, biting winds blow in off the lake. Snow falls in dozens of ways, in heavy overnight dumps and daytime, sideways squalls, in demoralizing sloppy sleet and fairy-tale billows of fluff. There’s ice, usually, lots of it, that shellacs the sidewalks and windshields that then need to be scraped. There the sound of that scraping in the early mornings—the hack hack hack of it—as people clear their cars to go to work. Your neighbors, unrecognizable in the thick layers they wear against the cold, keep their faces down to avoid the wind. City snowplows thunder through the streets as the white snow gets piled up and sooty, until nothing is pristine.”

I live in Houston. Icy winters don’t happen here. But I think we all go through seasons in our lives where we feel like we are living through a Chicago winter—on the inside. During those internal winters, life feels hopeless, overwhelming, unrecognizable.

Mrs. Obama continues:

“Eventually, however, something happens. A slow reversal begins. It can be subtle, a whiff of humidity in the air, a slight lifting of the sky. You feel it first in your heart, the possibility that winter might have passed. You may not trust it at the beginning, but then you do. Because now the sun is out and there are little nubby buds on the trees and your neighbors have taken off their heavy coats. And maybe there’s a new airiness to your thoughts on the morning you decide to pull out every window in your apartment so you can spray the glass and wipe down the sills. It allows you to think, to wonder if you’ve missed out on other possibilities by becoming a wife to this man in this house with these children.”

Of course we have. There are always other paths we could have taken. Always dreams deferred.

“Maybe you spend the whole day considering new ways to live before finally you fit every window back into its frame and empty your bucket of Pine-Sol into the sink. And maybe now all your certainty returns, because yes, truly, it’s spring and once again you’ve made the choice to stay.”

Michelle Obama, Becoming, 51.

It’s spring. When we invite those things into our lives that warm our hearts and give us the strength to keep going, it is spring. No matter how many kid-fights you’ve broken up, or medical challenges you face with all the courage you can muster, or sticky/stinky messes you encounter, you can face them with the renewed energy of spring. This is the power that comes from finding those “escapes” and including them in our lives.

Experts have found that everyone needs those mental escapes, those opportunities to do things that we love. If we do not do them intentionally, we will find ourselves escaping in less-desirable ways, like into our phones, getting sucked into social media rabbit holes, or staring at a screen. If our brains require some sort of escape or retreat, we might as well make it one of our own choosing, right?

I feel infinitely better when I know my children see me typing on a computer or reading a book or singing instead of in a zombie-like trance staring at a screen (been there, done that). Add to that the pleasure and fulfillment these activities bring to me, and I am sold. I never want to go back.

What is something that you used to love doing as a child? How could you incorporate it into your current life?

If you are looking for ways to add more joy to your everyday life, I’d love for you to check out my FREE mini-course. As always, I hope this post brings you joy.

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