Thankless

As a doctor, I spend my days seeing patients newly diagnosed with cancer, having to face the unthinkable reality of having to plan for the end, discussing the treatment options with them and quoting the arbitrary chance of cure. It’s always nice seeing the ones that actually have a decent chance of cure; I believe the number, and I sell that number with conviction to the person who had initially walked into my room confused and filled with fear.

My boss asked me to give someone the results of their latest biopsy over the phone one day, and I automatically jumped in asking, “What if it’s bad news?”

I couldn’t deliver that over the phone!

I looked up the results, and to my relief, it was great news! I couldn’t wait to tell him, so I called maybe a dozen times that day, but no answer. The next day came, and I had lost that excitement to be the bearer of his good news. I completely forgot that I even needed to call him. A few days had passed before he called the office looking for me.

Oh no!

How could I have let myself forget to call him?!

“At least it’s good news,” I thought to myself as I dialled in his number.

I finally got through to him that day and discussed his results with him in as much detail as I could so to ease his anxiety. His reaction surprised me. He cried as though he had just evaded death, and barely managed to express his gratitude through his sobbing that I couldn’t help but cry too (thankfully, he didn’t notice). He was so excited about his next appointment so that he could get the chance to thank me in person with a gift. I was so humbled. Even after I had forgotten to call him when I could have saved him an additional week of worry and anxiety, he still reacted with such overwhelming gratitude.

Medicine is a thankless job.

Everything and everyone seems to gnaw at your repose, trying to take away from all the fruits you spent so long tending for in your soul. The more and harder you work, the bigger your work bag becomes. The bag continues to fill with the pain, anxiety, complaints, sleeplessness and mistakes that you’ve collected along the way, unable to let go of them for fear that if you do, it’ll somehow turn you into less of a physician. Instead, you keep collecting more, adding to the ever-growing weight on your shoulders. You’re constantly tired, and you’re no longer as sharp as you were when you began.

The load changes you.

It turns you into a person you never imagined you could be. And sadly, the load just continues to increase, and you continue to lose yourself in the struggle it takes to lift it and try to carry on.

Motherhood, in so many ways, is very much the same. The difference is, you’re not just carrying your own load, but you pick up the bits falling off everyone else’s. You struggle under the weight of the baggage that everyone feels they can unload on you–because in doing so, their pain eases and their load lightens. They’re completely unaware of how little of your own load you will give up to someone else, in fear that you will no longer be everyone’s resting place. You hold on to it all, secretly praying for it to one day lighten on its own.

But it doesn’t, and it won’t, as long as you don’t let go.

Instead, the load becomes a source of fear, anger and sometimes, resentment.

You fear the person you are becoming with each passing day; having to let go of the things you love, the things you find solace in, and the person you once were in order to make room for the ever-growing load above and within you.

You feel anger towards your inability to deal with everything rationally and unemotionally, thinking that once you became ‘mum’ you were supposed to have answers to everything for everyone, and being anything less than this fictional being, you are not enough.

You resent the lack of support offered to you, even though you make your battles as private as possible, now unimpressed that nobody has read your mind and broken down the walls that are now harbouring your mind and soul, and holding you captive with your malignant load.

But mama, you are magnificent in any form that you are or become. The person you were is still the person you are, but stronger, wiser, and more fiercely loved than ever before! One day, the you who you knew before will make herself known again, but the mark this you is leaving on this earth, is unapologetically and inconceivably breath-taking.

Mama, you can do anything and everything, but becoming a fictional character curated out of other people’s expectations and judgement isn’t the thing you should focus on. No matter how much you give to this image, the more it will take from you, and no matter how big your sacrifices, the more it will expect from you. This fictional being does not exist, and there isn’t a single, uniform mould that could encapsulate every heroine of motherhood out there! We’re all different and amazing in our own rights. And if you need confirmation of this, just focus on the starry-eyed gazes that follow you around your own living room.

Finally, Mama, you are feeling unsupported because your load is too heavy, and you are a master at hiding your true role and worth. You are trying so hard to be the ultimate heroine, the one who saves everyone in the story while concealing how much your own battle of finding your self-worth continues to suffocate you. You run away from how little you think of yourself by completely immersing yourself in your family and your home. But what if you saw yourself the way God sees you? What would you see if you spent the day wearing your daughter’s shoes and looking up at yourself? What would you feel if you held your own hand and heart the way your husband does?

You don’t know your worth because you refuse to see it under all the baggage that you insist on carrying alone. But know that the way you see yourself is tainted by what the world expects of you.

You are enough in your sense of inadequacy. Because what you deem as insufficient is an abundance and overflowing of a love that has no bounds.

You are not alone in your thoughts of loneliness. We are all right there with you, sitting in the same crowded room thinking we are all walking this path on our own.

You are perfect in your imperfection. Because we crafted this idea of perfection out of the thoughts and ideas of people just like you and me, creating an unachievable and unrealistic standard. Know that the ultimate, Absolute and the perfect God created you with His standard of perfection in mind, and He is quite pleased with His masterpiece–you.

“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” Genesis 1:31 NKJV