I feel guilty for how much private resentment motherhood sometimes creates in me

Dear Delyara, I love my children fiercely. I would protect them with everything I have. And still, some evenings, I feel resentment move through me with shocking force — not because they are terrible, but because motherhood can be so constant, so physically available, so emotionally entering, that by the end of the day I sometimes feel I have no unclaimed self left. Then guilt arrives immediately. Because mothers are allowed tenderness, sacrifice, humour, even exhaustion in acceptable doses. But resentment? Not really. Not without shame attached. So I carry both. Love and resentment. Need and guilt. Devotion and depletion. I think many mothers do. I just think too few of us speak it cleanly.