Mother’s Day has passed and Father’s Day is this weekend, so this is a shout out to all the parents exploring in some way.

Parenting could be viewed as the ultimate adventure. And, like any adventure, it’s marked by uncertainty and exhaustion, challenges and accomplishments, and a constant process of learning and reassessing. Through it all, there are moments of deep satisfaction and a depth of emotion that’s hard to conceive of prior to becoming a parent.

With so many high, lows and intense experiences, an important lesson is that two seemingly opposing things can be true. Coming to this realization helps to accept the moment and be OK with it, whatever it is. Some examples to consider in this landscape of opposing thoughts:

• You crave alone time and never want to be apart from your child.

The change happens so suddenly. Even with nine months of lead time, its hard to really be prepared for becoming a parent. The moment a baby is born, there exists another small, helpless, human depending on its parents for survival. They need and want to be around their caregivers every waking moment. And even if the force of connection pulls you under like a tidal wave, it’s hard to adjust to this intense attachment, especially if you previously ventured through the mountains and desert untethered and alone.

Maybe it’s hard to leave your baby the first time, or every time. Or maybe it wasn’t hard at all, but you still feel drawn to them. Yet you crave freedom, the space to sort through thoughts, to be on your own schedule. Simultaneously, you still rush to return to them, to once again hold your child close and see them smile.

It doesn’t always make sense. Do what feels right in the moment. Have patience with yourself and this push and pull of emotion.

• You miss epic adventure days and marvel at short outings near home.

Parenting is filled with choices about how to spend time and what to prioritize. The long days of high-mileage hikes or multi-pitch climbs may feel like distant memories. The hours now pass with some combination of feeding, changing diapers and napping, whether in the baby or toddler phase of parenting. It can feel like a huge effort to just get out of the house, let alone get into the mountains.

It’s a different kind of exhaustion that settles into your body at the end of the day, one that doesn’t quite feel the same or replace those satisfying aches after extreme physical exertion.

And still, watching a small child study a bug or leaf on a short walk fills you with delight. There’s gratitude in having a clear creek where a small boy can throw rocks into the water just a half-mile from the car. Dawn patrol now means being the first one on the playground because you were up early anyway.

Revel in these mini-adventures that to a child probably feel like exploring entirely novel and enchanting worlds. Maybe you will get back to bigger adventures together at some point in the future. They won’t be small forever.

• You want them to stay little forever and appreciate their growth.

As weeks turn into months, and months turn into years, children become more independent. It happens in the smallest ways at first: No longer falling asleep in your arms but instead on their own in their crib. As toddlers, they start to have their own agenda, asserting their individualism by stubbornly refusing any number of tasks. And with that comes the remarkable opportunity to witness a person learning how to exist in this complicated world.

There’s a loss with each passing phase and also something astounding to be gained.

Maybe you’re on the opposite end of parenting and your children have left home to blaze their own path. You may welcome the quiet or the space to delve more deeply into your own interests, and you may miss them greatly at the same time.

If you’re not a parent, you may experience this in other aspects of life. You love your work and give a lot of time to it while also wishing you could commit more time to other activities. You may explore differently now because of injury or age, missing the old adventures but still grateful for what you can do now. Or maybe some days you want so badly to stay in bed and also get out on the trails to find beauty, physical limits, mental clarity or whatever it is that lures us out time and time again.

These opposing thoughts and emotions don’t have to be at odds. Two things can be true.