Parenthood I

One of the most startling aspects of becoming a parent is how that experience somehow heightens every emotion in life. The highs are much higher than pre-parenthood, and simultaneously, the lows are much lower.

In some ways, there is plenty to learn when you become a new parent. First, that 'newness' never leaves. Parenthood is more like ocean than it is swimming pool. In the ocean, tides rise and they fall. The tide comes in all shapes, sizes, seasons, and levels of intensities. You constantly learn how to navigate the tide at the exact moment you experience it — whether you want to dive in headfirst, let it splash your feet, or you want to avoid it altogether. On the contrary, you may cannonball off the high dive into a swimming pool, splashing water outside of the walls temporarily. Yet, the pool always regains its shape. It is quite literally etched in stone. We go in to parenthood thinking, and hoping, that it is more swimming pool than ocean. The ocean is terrifying — it represents a one-of-a-kind vastness, incomprehensible and immune to replication anywhere else in the world. With no end in sight, there is no way to swim the distance — or even a small piece of its distance — and there are endless opportunities for things to go wrong, completely outside of control. And yet, there is a reason why people line up to witness the beauty of the ocean, but ignore the swimming pool in their own backyard.

The ocean, and all of its unknowns, breathe into the universe the most intense kind of beauty. The kind of beauty that has no bounds. The kind of beauty that cannot be replicated. It is the kind of beauty that subconsciously forces internal reflection at every moment.

Human default is to chase the swimming pools. Instead, we may simply need to learn how to embrace the ocean.