The Two-Sided Love Coin

Wednesday October 6, 2010 The longer I live, the more I realize that life isn’t as black and white as I once thought. Sure, there are some things I’ve vowed never to compromise on, but the reality of life has hit me upside the head enough times that I’ll no longer deny the coin sometimes has two sides.

Take motherhood, for example. We love it – we eat, we live, we breathe it. But sometimes it’s daunting. It’s just hard.

On one side, that two-sided coin has emblazoned

Loving Desperation.

It drives me to ask why. Why me? Why my child?

It compels me to stand at the door with my wailing son,

anxious to pass him off to Dad.

It makes me wonder if my teen and I will ever connect the way I want us to.

It questions me, sometimes even guilts me. Am I a good mother?

And when it flips to the other side, which it so often does,

thankfully, I see written there

Desperate Love.

It drives me to stay up far too late to finish just the right costume.

It says, “No matter how many times you roll your eyes at me, I still love you!”

It forces me to sit wide awake on the couch,

waiting for the familiar hum of the car in the driveway.

It compels me to rock and bounce and sway –

whatever it takes to maintain that sweet slumber in my arms.

Loving Desperation. Desperate Love.
It’s the currency of motherhood.

Cherish it. Save it. Spend it oh-so-carefully.

Have you felt it? The loving desperation...the desperate love?

Linking up today with Emily Wierenga from in the hush of the moon. Learn more about Imperfect Prose here. Why don't you come along?