Motherhood has a way of making my heart ache.
Sometimes, the heartache comes from the pain of seeing my child struggle...and not being able to take it all away.
Other times, it's a joyful ache, the stinging pride of watching her mature and flourish...the eye-watering sweetness of the truly amazing little person she is becoming.
And sometimes, it's both at the very same time.
I have been feeling the double ache lately as I watch Nadia struggle to conquer her fears.
She used to be a fearless child. There were no such thing as strangers or dangers in her world. Every new experience was an adventure to thrill and delight, and she dove into all of them with enthusiasm. She was social, she was brave, she was utterly without fear.
And then...well, it's hard to say for sure what happened. Maybe it's just that as she's gotten a little older, she's realized that there are dangers out there. Maybe the insecurities of her life have impacted her on a deeper level. Regardless, I welcomed the first signs of trepidation in my girl. I'd suffered too many mini heart attacks from her reckless nature, and was glad for her to stick a bit closer to my side. It's good to have a little healthy fear.
But those fears have grown. Over the last year, I've watched Nadia's fearlessness turn into wariness and then into fear and, on occasion, even into terror. A dozen different thing have become sources of anxiety for her. Now we're not talking paralyzing fear (at least, not most of the time!), and there are times when her spunky courage comes back - but the dramatic change makes it a strange and unsettling thing for both of us.
She used to recklessly dash out into the parking lot, oblivious of the dangers; now she clutches my hand with bone-crushing intensity and has a mini freakout if a car comes without 200 feet. In the grocery store, she scurries behind me and peeks out with trepidation if another shopper enters the other end of the aisle we occupy. Whereas she used to vie for a turn pushing the heavy vacuum cleaner, she now sits on her bed with her ears covered while I vacuum. Spiders and crickets - heck, even ants! - send her into hysterics.
It kills me. My heart aches to see these fears in my baby girl. And it's the bad kind of heartache.
But watching her conquer those fears fills my heart with another kind of ache. And this kind, it's a good one.
What's that quote about courage? Something like, "courage doesn't mean being unafraid; it means feeling fear and doing it anyway." Well, that makes my daughter the most courageous person I know.
Nadia is conquering her fears. She is not about to sit back and accept the things that frighten her. She actively seeks out her phobias, tackling them head on.
"I am a little bit afraid of monsters," she'll admit, nodding her head and wrinkling her forehead in that adorable way of hers. "but, I know they really are just pretend and God and you will always keep me safe, so I really am juuuust fine." And as she continues her pep talk, her forehead smooths out and her eyes brighten.
Or, "I am nervous to say hi" she'll tell me, "but I can do it when you hold my hand!
I just love how she's able to verbalize and reassure herself.
Spiders. She's afraid of them. And yet, she searches the library shelves for books about spiders (and snakes and all manner of creepy-crawlies), and she reads them eagerly even while shuddering in fear. The first Halloween goody she showed we was an orange spider ring that both terrifies and fascinates her. One of our friends has a rubber lizard that terrifies her, but it's the first thing she looks for every time we are at their house. And, whereas she used to shriek at the mere sight of that lizard, she is now able to hold it in her own hands - all the while saying, "look Mom, I can be so brave!"
"WooHoo!" she shrieked as she flew into the sky on the swings a few days ago. She was honestly a little nervous, but she channeled her fears and turned them into something positive. After a few minutes, her tentative "WooHoos" turned into more genuine whoops of delight as the fear trickled away. She had faced her fears - and she's conquered them.
And then, she fell. Poor kid!
But guess what? She was back on the swings five minutes later. This time she just had the caution, "only a little bit high, Mama, not the highest ever."
Two months ago, she was wary of climbing the first step of the jungle gym at the park. The only way she would walk across the bridge was if I were carrying her. And you could forget about her hanging from rings.
So this:
is a victory.
Her spunkiness and exuberance are coming back more and more every day, because
she is making it happen.
It makes my heart ache with pride.
And it inspires me to step outside my comfort zone, confront my own fears, and try something new.
Parenthood - it has a way of teaching and inspiring us, doesn't it?
