Just some odd musings, spurred on mostly through conversations about kids with
Loving is what’s gut-wrenching. Motherhood/fatherhood/parenthood are just words. It’s the love that makes life exciting. What’s that quote from Parenthood? Gil and the grandmother are talking… (thank God for IMDB!!)
Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.
Once you give your heart away, you worry a little bit about whether or not it’ll come back. It does. But not in the way you think. It comes back to you in the form of love from others. It’s a great big game of give and take. You give a little, you gain a little.
Still, you worry about the pieces of your heart you’ve given away. With our children, they become walking, talking whirlwinds that careen about, bumping and bruising the heart with each fall, every tear. You can’t help but hurt along with them.
Sometimes you almost wish you could take your heart back…only for a little bit. Just to catch your breath. Just to have a moment where you don’t feel it beating out of your chest. But then, after a while, you learn your heart only gets stronger because of the journey it’s taken with those who’ve held your love so very close them.
When you realize that, you kind of learn to love the adventure.