The Nostalgia for Now: On the Bittersweet Ache of Motherhood
There is a song that comes to mind. A melody about moments slipping through your fingers (all the time). You know the one. It plays in the background of motherhood, especially in slow motion-eque moments of a new milestone they achieved. The first bike ride without training wheels. A story read in a voice that suddenly sounds less like a baby and more like a child. The “I don’t need your help, mommy”, where you actually realize they don’t.
In the glow of these perfect seconds, another feeling often arrives uninvited. A strange and quiet grief. A nostalgia for the moment you are still living in. The very welcomed independence that hits you like a dagger in the tender space between your ribs.
You are there. You are watching it happen. And yet, a part of you is already mourning its passing.
“In the glow of these perfect seconds, another feeling often arrives uninvited. A strange and quiet grief. A nostalgia for the moment you are still living in.”
When “Enjoy Every Minute” Feels Like a Command
This is the bittersweet ache so many of us know. It lives in the space between celebration and sorrow, fueled by the chorus of well-meaning advice we have all heard.
“Enjoy every minute.” “The days are long but the years are short.” “Babies don’t keep.”
These words, meant to encourage presence, can become a kind of pressure. They plant a seed of doubt. Am I enjoying this enough? Am I soaking it in correctly? Did I capture the right memory? The joy of the moment becomes secondary to the fear of not honoring it properly. You are suddenly an archivist of your own life, frantically trying to bottle the light before it fades.
Grieving the Mother You Hoped to Be
And what about the moments that are not so perfect?
What about the times you are the tired mother, not the higher self mother? The times your child’s behavior sparks a deep embarrassment in you at a school event. The times you are impatient or distracted or simply touched out. In these moments, the guilt is sharp. We grieve the time passing, and we grieve the mother we failed to be within that time.
If you come from a difficult past, or hold complicated narratives about what it means to be a daughter or a mother, this feeling can be even louder. There is an internal detective working overtime, connecting threads from your past to your present, constantly asking if your child will have to survive you. If you are doing right by them. These ruminating thoughts can become a cycle of anxiety and self-blame, a quiet hum of not enough beneath the surface of your days.
“There is an internal detective working overtime, connecting threads from your past to your present, constantly asking if your child will have to survive you. If you are doing right by them.”
What if This Ache is a Measure of Your Love?
But what if we could hold this differently?
What if this nostalgia for now is not a sign that you are failing, but a measure of how deeply you love?
The ache is the texture of profound connection. The grief is the shadow of an immense and overwhelming joy. They can exist together. The beauty and the difficulty do not cancel each other out. They are woven into the same tapestry.
“What if this nostalgia for now is not a sign that you are failing, but a measure of how deeply you love?”
Maybe the goal is not to stop time or to perfectly curate every memory. Maybe it is simply to be in the mess and the magic of it all. To feel the flash of embarrassment and forgive yourself for it. To see the milestone and feel the pang of its passing, and to know that both are true. Perhaps some magical moments are only meant to be recognized in the aftermath of them.
You are not doing it wrong. You are feeling it all.
The love is in the trying. The healing is in the being.
If these reflections resonate with you, there is more to explore. Overture Therapy specializes in supporting mothers, parents, and cycle breakers through the complex feelings that arise in family life. Visit www.overturetherapy.com to learn more about our work with perinatal mental health, trauma, and finding compassion for yourself.