If This Table Could Talk
If this table could talk, it would say…
She mothered beautifully, imperfectly and often with tears falling into her cold coffee.
She sat here, day after day, with a million invisible tabs open in her mind of all the things she thought should be doing as a mother:
Source organic food.
Add more vegetables.
Cook every meal at home.
Pump more.
Gentle parent.
Be patient.
Have more fun.
Laugh more often.
Play.
Be grateful.
Do better.
Be better.
She was stuck in the constant mind loop of wondering if she was doing enough. If she was enough. Enough as a mother, a partner, a friend, a woman.
I cradled her elbows many a morning and held the emotional weight as she held her head in her hands and wept at the identity crisis she never saw coming. The disconnect between who she once was, and who she is becoming as a mother.
She tortures herself reliving the unrealistic image she holds of the type of mother she thinks she should be. The calm, grounded goddess floating through motherhood without a care or concern.
I see her trying to be all things to all people, and neglecting herself along the way.
I carry the weight of the washing piling up all over me and I see her, see it all, and sigh with exhaustion at the realisation that at some point, it also needs to be tended to.
I hold her dinner plate, waiting for her to sit with me at the end of her long day. I wait, and wait. Eventually she returns to consume the nourishing meal that is now stone cold.
If I could talk to her I would whisper: you are enough, even on the days you don’t feel it.
Some tables hold more than just plates.
Pull up a chair and tell me: what would your table say, if you let it speak?