My five year old still sleeps in my bed from time to time. Last night she rolled over in her sleep, put her arms around me, and gave me a big hug. She let out a sigh. My heart melted.
This wasn't like the hugs we have during the day, where I ask for a hug, or she does, or we show affection simply because we're standing next to each other. This was a subconscious hug. To my daughter, mom is perfect. This love, in my life, is unprecedented. Unconditional. Unequivocal. It scares me sometimes. Someday she will realize just how imperfect I am. I wonder if someday she will start to feel uncomfortable with my hugs. I wonder if I will disappoint her, if she will grow to resent me. Surely someday she will realize that I do almost everything wrong.
Despite what my daughter thinks of me now, I am not really great at anything. I am not a great mom. I am a terrible housekeeper, and not a great breadwinner either. Trying to do all three leads me to feel burnt out, which leads to depression, which leads to me just shutting down. At that point, I often snap at my loved ones, tune out my kids and ignore my husband. This is not the life of a picture perfect mom, living in a picture perfect world, maintaining a picture perfect blog that other moms can read and envy.
But I still get hugs in the middle of the night. I am probably only conscious of these hugs because I have insomnia. So last night I laid awake wondering why this child is wrapping her arms around me as if I am the greatest thing in the universe, her own personal heaven. Her once chubby arms and legs are getting longer and thinner, and her body seems huge to me now. She no longer sleeps with her head in my armpit, where she once enjoyed the comfort of the smell of breast milk in the night. I see her growing up, and I'm afraid that it's only a matter of time before she sees all my faults. This in inevitable. I celebrated her fifth birthday last week, and at the same time, I mourned it.
