I was sitting in the blistering Pretoria sun watching my son play tennis when another mother asked me a simple question.

You know the kind of conversation. The polite small talk that happens between parents standing on the sidelines of sporting fields and school events.

First, we discuss the weather.

“Goodness, it’s hot.”

“It’s unbearable.”

Then, because we are mothers, we talk about the children.

Eventually she looks at me and asks, “How do you do it?”

I smiled.

Not because I had an answer.

Not because I am doing it.

But because sometimes a smile is the easiest way to stop yourself from saying what you really think.

I often wonder what would happen if mothers answered that question honestly.

What if, instead of talking about schedules and routines and meal planning and organisation hacks, we simply told the truth?

I wish I could have told her that she should never assume my yellow sundress, oversized hat and calm demeanour are any reflection of the chaos happening inside my head.

I wish I could have told her that there are days when I wish I had time to cry.

Not because my life is terrible. Not because I am unhappy. But because carrying the emotional load of a large family is heavier than I ever imagined it would be.

Motherhood is strange because it allows contradictory emotions to exist in the same space.

I love being a mother.

I resent it sometimes.

I am deeply grateful.

I am profoundly exhausted.

I feel blessed.

I feel trapped.

I feel needed.

I long to be left alone.

The older I get, the more I realise these emotions are not opposites. They are companions. They travel together.

Most mornings, after the children leave for school, I stand quietly and stare out the window at the trees.

There is one particular tree that catches my attention often. It stands exactly where it should be. Firmly rooted. Unapologetically itself. It bends when the wind comes. It survives storms. It sheds what it no longer needs. It simply exists without questioning whether it is doing enough.

I envy that tree.

Because I spend an extraordinary amount of time wondering whether I am doing enough.

Whether I am enough.

Whether I am giving enough.

Whether I should be more patient, more present, more productive, more organised, more grateful.

Whether I should stop feeling overwhelmed because other people seem to be managing just fine.

The truth is that I am not managing nearly as well as people think I am.

Most days I am simply surviving.

And even that feels difficult to admit.

As I sat there watching my son play tennis, I found myself doing what I always do. Half of me was watching him. The other half was mentally running through the endless list of things waiting for me.

Emails.

Work.

Appointments.

School forms.

Laundry.

Conversations I need to have.

Decisions I need to make.

The dentist appointment I still haven’t booked despite it sitting on my to-do list for weeks.

I was physically present but mentally sprinting.

Then, because motherhood is particularly skilled at creating guilt, I felt bad for thinking about those things instead of simply enjoying the moment.

It is remarkable how often mothers find ways to fail in their own minds.

If we are working, we worry we should be with our children.

If we are with our children, we worry about the work we are not doing.

If we rest, we feel lazy.

If we push harder, we feel depleted.

The target keeps moving.

The standard remains impossible.

What I didn’t tell the woman standing next to me was that earlier that morning I had screamed into my pillow.

Not because of a specific crisis.

Not because anything had gone terribly wrong.

Simply because the weight felt too heavy.

Because there are moments when the responsibility of holding so many moving pieces feels unbearable.

Moments when the pressure settles on your chest and you wonder how something so full of love can also feel so suffocating.

Of course I didn’t say any of that.

Instead I nodded politely.

“It’s so hot,” I said.

I smiled again.

I looked back at the tree.

And for a brief moment I wondered whether it ever wishes it had been planted somewhere else.

Whether it ever grows tired of standing.

Whether it ever resents the storms.

Whether it feels guilty for resenting them.

Then I laughed at myself because perhaps that is what exhausted mothers do. We project ourselves onto trees.

My son stepped up to serve.

The match continued.

The sun continued to blaze.

Life continued to ask for things.

And I continued too.

Not because I had figured it out.

Not because I had found some secret formula for balancing motherhood, work, relationships and my own humanity.

But because that is what most mothers do.

We continue.

We carry the love and the gratitude and the resentment and the exhaustion and the joy all at the same time.

We carry the impossible contradictions of motherhood.

And somehow, despite everything, we keep showing up.

Not perfectly.

Just faithfully.