if no one tells you

“This is the last uphill, then it’s easy all the way down.” 

Ahead of me is my mother, a seasoned trail runner currently training for a fifty-miler. The two of us got up at four o’clock this morning so that she could introduce me to this trail, one that she claimed was suitable for beginners like me. And she wasn’t wrong, but the six miles we’ve spent together are the most I’ve run this summer, and I am huffing and puffing my way up this hill. I am tired, but also feeling strong and accomplished. As a reluctant morning person, getting up before the sun is not easy, but I did it today. And I’ve actually managed to drag my body up and down these hills, in the darkness, without tripping and sliding into the valley below. 

As we jog into the parking lot, I stop my watch and wait for it to sync with the run-tracking app on my phone. As Mom gets the dog settled in the back of the car, I swipe through my stats. 

I knew my pace would be slower than I’m used to, but as the app displays my training status, I am dismayed to see that it has decreased from productive to maintaining. In other words, according to my watch, this early-morning sweatfest that has left me gasping and sore did nothing to improve my overall fitness, and was just barely enough to keep me from losing fitness. 

“But you know you’re getting stronger,” Mom assures me as we drive home.

The problem is, I don’t. 

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We shake the dust from our running shoes before going into the house, which I half expect to be bustling. But there is still half an hour until my kids should be up, and it is quiet. I hurry to shower, and before I know it, my day has begun.

It’s like I’m back on the trail; up and down the hills we go, navigating the rocks and roots of four-year-old feelings and toddler mischief. I try to keep the pace steady, but inevitably find myself slowing to a crawl when the ground gets steep and the air gets thin. 

And on this trail, there is no watch to tell me whether I’ve been productive. Even a to-do list is less than helpful, considering that anything done must be redone, day in and day out, until the end of time (or so it seems). The laundry. The dishes. The tantrums. 

I’m luckier than some, because my husband tells me regularly that he is proud of me, both for hard things—like running up a mountain—and for the things that I feel should be easy, but aren’t, like laundry and dishes and tantrums. And I’m grateful, because how else do you know that you’re enough, if no one tells you? 

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The days cycle by, and all the excitement and momentum that I gained from that run in the mountains dissolves. Though I had been awake before the sun that day, I meet subsequent dawns with bleary eyes and heavy moods. Though I felt strong completing those six miles, suddenly even a single mile feels like an impossibility. I find myself skipping workouts, and laying out my reasons at the feet of anyone who will listen. 

“Babe,” my husband says, a note of bewilderment in his voice, “it’s fine. You know what you need.” 

The problem is, I don’t. 

Or, at least, I don’t trust myself to know what I need. Because what if doing what I need means that I haven’t done enough? If I rest today, will I lose the fitness I have worked so hard to gain? Will my next foray into the mountains be a complete failure because I didn’t get my miles in today? 

And it goes beyond running: if I rest today, will the dishes get done? And if they don’t, am I a bad mother? 

If I rest today, will my children miss out on crucial learning moments? If they watch TV today, will they still be able to read well in first grade? 

Have I done enough? How do I know? 

I wish I had an answer, but I don’t. I wish I had some sort of nicely worded concluding paragraph to put here, that will bring solace to myself and to all the other moms who are looking at their watches, praying that the hard work, sweat, and tears that they have put into this never-ending run will have paid off. Desperately hoping for some kind of indication that it has been enough, they have done enough. But in the end, I have more questions than answers.

I guess all we can do is keep running.

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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 "Enough".