Motherhood Didn't Create These Wounds. It Just Found Them.
Before I became a mother, I knew that motherhood would change my life in many ways. I also knew there were ways it would change me that I couldn't begin to imagine.
I'd be more tired.
I'd have way less free time.
I'd spend more money on snacks.
I'd learn how to function on interrupted sleep. (Though truth be told, college, grad school, and five years in China were solid preparation for that. The key difference being that back then, it was me keeping myself up — not a screaming tiny human who somehow knew the exact moment I finally succumbed to sleep.)
I'd never find time to finish unpacking all the boxes from our move or organize my office. (That one was especially accurate — as evidenced by the boxes still sitting in my house almost six years later.)
All of those things turned out to be true.
What I didn't expect was how much motherhood would change what hurts.
Recently, I dropped my daughter off at camp.
Even waiting in line to check her in, I felt it. That low-grade nervous hum. Flashbacks to my parents pulling up to my college dorm, helping me unpack, and then leaving. Flashbacks to sleep away camp — getting my bunk assignment, walking down to find my bed, all that nervous anticipation and excitement about meeting new people and being completely on my own. My daughter's first day of camp somehow held all of that inside it.
I had to keep reminding myself: I would see her in a few hours. I was literally five minutes away.
And then we checked her in, and I found myself standing in the parking lot, completely unable to leave.
My feet wouldn't move. My body was screaming two completely opposite things at the same time — run to her and let her be. I stood there, torn in half, peering through the window like a woman waiting for a verdict. (In many ways, I was.)
I didn't cry in the car on the way home. I felt numb. The kind of numb that means something is there but hasn't found its way out yet. I got home, put on my werewolf romantasy audiobook, and disappeared for a while. Not because I didn't care. Because I cared so much I didn't know what to do with it, even as a coach who teaches those very tools.
As the day went on, I started to understand what was actually happening.
I wasn't just watching my daughter.
I was watching every version of myself that had ever felt unsure where she belonged.
The first day of high school, terrified I wouldn't be able to find my locker (or open it!) — never mind make a single friend.
Sleep away camp, so homesick I couldn't stop crying, convinced I was the only one who felt that way.
The version of me who spent five years in China, aware every single day that I looked different — who sat in offices where people included her and still somehow othered her — and who built a home anyway out of the expat friends who became her closest family.
That last one still gets me. Because it wasn't childhood vulnerability. It was adult vulnerability. It was knowing that belonging isn't guaranteed, and deciding to show up for it anyway.
And standing in that parking lot, watching my daughter scan the yard for a friendly face, I felt every single one of those moments like they were happening right now.
Not because I was projecting (okay, maybe I was a little bit).
Not because I was weak.
Because I was human. And because motherhood has a unique ability to find every tender place you've ever carried — and tap on its shoulder. (Sometimes punch it in the face.)
Before I had children, I could hear a story about a child being left out and feel empathy.
Now I hear that story and feel it in my body.
Before I had children, I could watch a kid walk into a new situation and think, I hope they have fun.
Now I find myself wondering if they made a friend, if someone noticed they looked nervous, if they ate enough lunch, if they're secretly having the worst day of their lives. Did they put on sunscreen?
Motherhood doesn't just change our schedules.
It changes what hurts. What scares us. What keeps us up at night. What feels personal.
It also changes what we need to heal.
Because the longer I'm a mother, the more I realize that parenting isn't only about raising children.
It's also about raising ourselves.
It's about noticing the old stories that come rushing back when our children encounter situations that mirror our own. It's about recognizing that the intensity of what we're feeling may not be entirely about what's happening today.
It's about asking:
What is this bringing up for me?
What old wound just got tapped on the shoulder (or punched in the face)?
What younger version of me is asking to be seen and comforted?
Healing does not mean getting rid of those old wounds or burying them again.
Healing looks like recognizing them when they show up. Offering compassion instead of criticism. Understanding that the reason something hurts so much today may have very little to do with today.
We have a choice here. We can choose to continue to bury any old unresolved experience, or we can face it head-on and work through it. We can use this as a gift to our children — to model strength, resilience, and self-compassion.
Our children are not exposing our weaknesses. They're revealing our opportunities for growth.
Not because they're responsible for healing us — they're not. But because loving another human this fiercely has a way of illuminating every corner of our own hearts. The beautiful parts. The tender parts. The unfinished parts. The parts that still need a little love.
The irony is that when I became a mother, I thought I was signing up to help my children grow.
I was.
I just didn't realize how much growing I'd have to do right alongside them.
Our children aren't the only ones becoming.
We are too.
I'd Love to Hear From You
How has motherhood caught you off guard like this — a moment that was supposed to be ordinary, and wasn't? Find me on Instagram @thenonlinearjourneylife or send me an email.
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If this post stirred something in you, you're not alone in that. I created You're Not Failing, You're Feeling — my guided journal for moms — as a companion for exactly these kinds of moments. The ones that catch you off guard. The ones that ask you to look a little deeper. You can find it in the Your Non-Linear Journey Shop.
