gigantic

photography: kim | kim klassen café |

How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.
G.K. Chesterton

Mothering is the most draining, fulfilling, mundane, exhilirating role I’ve ever undertaken. Some days the thought of getting out of bed to do the same thing all over, wearies me, body and soul. Another day of whining, laundry, and reading the same silly books over and over agin. Not to mention, navigating the hodpodge of Legos and farm animals littering the path at every turn. If I’m not careful, self-pity can slip in and take a seat in a dark corner of my mind, almost without notice.

But then it happens – the spark in her eye that tells me she really ”gets it”, perhaps for the first time. The way her eyes dance and her tiny feet take flight when she hears her Daddy’s joyful greeting at day’s end. Her unwavering faith in the healing power of my kiss. Her pudgy hands on my face. Her loyal declarations of undying affection. And suddenly, I can’t remember how many tantrums I’ve endured or how many loads of laundry I’ve folded. I remember that this is no small thing I am doing here, all day, every day, with this very small person. I remember she will not be small for very long.

†G.K. Chesterton, ”The Emancipation of Domesticity”, What’s Wrong with the World (1910)

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