My Motherhood Playlist

Have you ever heard a song that takes you back to a past memory? Just a few words and you are transported to another time in your life? Some songs have a way of doing that to me. Hearing No Doubt always sends me to my teen years, sitting by a pool, basking in the sun in my friend’s backyard. Glory of Love plants me back on the dance floor at my wedding. It’s amazing how music has become a time capsule for my life. Certain songs can elicit great memories and emotions, while others remind me of hard times that just don’t seem to fade even when the song ends. 

Motherhood has had its own playlist for me. Looking back, I have found a list of songs that have become the soundtrack for my journey as a mom. 

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Let Her Go by Passenger

“Well, you only need the light when it’s burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go.”

I still get the same feelings when I hear Let Her Go. It starts and the emotions come flooding back; lonely, confused, uncertain and exhausted, oh so exhausted. Even eight years later, just the first few lines whisk me back to those early days of motherhood. 

It was a song I played over and over when my oldest son was only a few weeks old. We spent hours alone together during my maternity leave, usually in the nursery room that my husband and I had carefully painted and decorated during the nine months I was pregnant. The walls were a color called “Gentleman’s Blue” and it had touches of wood and metal. I felt prepared before my son’s arrival, but then he entered my life, and our awkward dance began. 

I listened to this song on repeat in those first few weeks of motherhood. Maybe I just needed to fill the lonely void in our house when we were alone and my baby wasn’t crying or it could have been that I wanted a way to somehow digest the emotions I was feeling. Now, looking back at that song, I’ve noticed that it is slow and melancholy. It mimicked the flow of my days and the feelings that surrounded being a new mom. 

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“You’ve Got A Friend In Me” by Randy Newman

“You’ve got a friend in me
You got troubles, I’ve got ’em too
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you
We stick together and see it through
‘Cause you’ve got a friend in me”

Luckily for me, I outgrew that first song and found a new one. When my son turned two, we moved to a house that had a large space of wooden floor between our living room and dining room. To kill time during those dreaded late afternoon hours before dinner, I’d put on “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and my son would reach up his little arms and say, “Mama, hold you.” We’d spin in circles, his chick fuzz hair blowing in the air. Each spin would make me dizzy but he’d use his tiny fingers to sign, “More, more,” and again we’d twirl. 

His giggles filled the afternoons and got us to dinner, then bath, and then finally bedtime. We listened to this song because we both needed to move. He needed to burn the last bit of energy in his always moving body and I needed to fill my long days with entertainment and stimulus, because being a mom to a toddler sometimes felt excruciatingly lonely. 

This new stage of motherhood did have a quicker beat unlike those earlier days. I felt more comfortable with my son. We were learning how to find our own rhythm and create movement that didn’t exist before. Our daily walks and park meetups replaced the loneliness that surrounded those newborn days tucked away in the nursery. 

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“Swish, Swish” by Katie Perry

“Swish, Swish
Another one in the basket
Can’t touch this”

My playlist continued to evolve after my son started elementary school. He taught me a new “cool” dance move that all the kids in his class were doing. He would put on the trendy song from a list I titled, “Ronin’s Music.” It was filled with songs that he loved and I tolerated.  No longer could I put on my own music, but instead, he would grab my phone and play DJ.  We’d stand on the same dance floor we once twirled together on, but this time he tried to instruct me on how to move my straight arms and hips in a way that would floss them. Somehow, my mom body just couldn’t find that rhythm. 

We learned to move together in a funny mother/son harmony though. The beats at this stage of motherhood brought me a new sense of confidence and freedom and I didn’t feel quite as awkward about making a fool of myself or correcting the many mistakes I made.

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Eye of the Tiger by Survivor

“It’s the eye of the tiger
It’s the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watching us all with the eye of the tiger”

Fast forward to today and I no longer find myself dancing in our house, but rather, in the car, chauffeuring my son to and from baseball practice and games. We listen to the Eye of the Tiger on repeat to get him pumped up to play. With the song stuck in my head all day, I dance on the bleachers, the loudest mom at the game, beaming ear to ear as my son, the baby I once cradled in my arms, rockets the baseball to the outfield and sprints around the bases. 

We may not be holding onto each other spinning around in our living room anymore, but we still move to the beat of the same song. I am feeling totally different emotions these days, ones of sheer joy and an overwhelming sense of pride for the human that I created. My cheers and waving catch his attention but he rolls his eyes at me in embarrassment.  I am proud though as my boy is spreading his wings and succeeding on his own turf. 

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Our playlist is going to continue to change. On the day he gets married, we will put on a song and I will dance with my boy again before sending him off to his wife. His soft pudgy fingers will be replaced with the hands of a man.

I wonder how I will feel at the moment when I realize my job is almost done and our playlist is ending. Will I feel scared and alone like I did when he was a newborn? Will I feel exhausted yet playful like those toddler years? Maybe goofy and carefree like when he was in elementary school?  Or will I feel an overwhelming sense of pride like I did when he was on the ball field? I think I will only truly know when that day arrives, but no matter my feelings, to relive my journey, all I will need to do is play a song off my motherhood playlist.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series “Lyrical”.