My confidence was luke-warm and what I did have felt fake. 

The pull was strong. And even though I wanted to ignore it and stuff it down, I couldn’t.

Believe me, I tried.  I back-pedaled and busied myself. I rearranged my house, cleaned out junk drawers and Amazon’d cat food. I made lots of excuses.

I have small kids!  How can anyone do anything when they are in charge of raising humans? 

I had so many reasons why I could not do the thing. 

When I rise, it’s still dark. The sun is sleeping. I hear frogs, palms swaying.

The wall of windows I walk past from our bedroom to the kitchen gives nothing away but blackness.

Will the day emerge? It must. It always does. God placed these reliable comforts here for us to lean on. To be the scaffolding of our days.

Moments later, within these walls I call home, my own world emerges.

The girls stumble down, Aster first. Messy haired, sandman eyes. Usually rubbing them as she squints against the lights I’ve flipped on even though they are dim.

If you’re a mom, then January as the “new year” pales in comparison to September.

September is mom porn. Just looking at the calendar page in my planner makes me swoon. Ask any mom and they will get sparkles in their eyes when you say the S word.

Summatime is over. Kids are back in school. Fresh start. Clean slate. The 100 Day weekend is over and you f*ing did it. It’s a big deal. I celebrate all the moms out there. I see you sitting in your car post first day drop off squealing with delight. I’m with ya.

It’s late. Way past my bedtime. But I have to get it down. I think it’s the only way I’ll be able to sleep.

I come here. To this little portal of words. My therapist’s couch, my processing place. To work through the big and small. To make sense of, to piece together, all the gifts that are nestled inside all the feels.

Today was a big one. I thought I was ready for it.

Like a lot of things related to being a parent, I was wrong. I was not ready. At all.

Today we watched our first born step out into the “world” (errr, sleep away camp bubble) without us.

No one. No calvary. No superhero.

You don’t need ‘em. You are the Superhero. You save yourself.

When I finally got this, like reeeeeeally got it, I felt reborn. Liberated.

This is my attempt to grasp at all the feels of being a Mom to this magical human. Of remembering the everyday moments of watching a tiny life grow, unfold, blossom. To mark them, to remember them, to hold them even though I know that the only way I can do so is in words and feels and love. That as sharp and piercing as they feel now, time will apply a layer of blur and haze. These memories tapped out into words is my way of marking a season of life and time that simultaneously stands still (is it bedtime yet?!) and moves at mach speed (3?! how?).

The kids are back in school. Basically a National Holiday. I’m celebrating a very important independence - Mine.Cue the ball drop, a promising midnight kiss, and an ambitious All The Things I’m Going to Do list that rivals that of the President. My world feels pregnant with potential. I’m in the bring it on mindset. I’ve gone mad. Delusional. Temporarily blinded by the teeny tiny sense of mom freedom that comes as the calendar flips to fall.

I’m firing my brain back up in ways that used to be my norm. While being Mom. You know, like, at the same time. Apparently I forgot that’s an option. I ditched my I can’t have both approach and have integrated Mom Life into Me Life. And, as it so magically does, the world dropped me a lifeline exactly when I needed it.

The girls are in bed. I just made a salad for dinner (arugula, roasted sweet potatoes, hard boiled egg, walnuts, half an avocado, nutritional yeast, lots of olive oil & Maldon sea salt). And a big handful of potato chips (salt & vinegar, my kryptonite). I didn’t really want to write but I couldn’t ignore the voice that said - get it out, put it down in words. Just brain dump onto the page. Let it catch all your stuff.

I started doing this last year. In lieu of the dreaded “New Years Resolutions” (loathe) I read about the concept of making a list (love). It goes like this: Twenty-two things you want to do/accomplish/become/complete by the end of the year. They can be easy or ambitious, one-time undertakings or habits that stretch for years. Think about what you want the new year to hold for You. Get the things out of your mind and onto paper and this list becomes your compass for 2022. When you feel lost or adrift, you have a place to go to course correct. A tangible body of words that will guide you back to the driver’s seat, because at the end of the day, no one else is responsible for your life. Empowering and terrifying, I know. I feel it, too.

Have you ever been in the deep end of something that felt so overwhelmingly Big, you froze? Just sort of folded in on yourself, raised the white flag in surrender, gave up? I’m raising my hand over here. High. It’s happened to me (a lot). Still does. Sometimes just being a parent feels like too much. Like waking up and realizing, I have to do this again (and again and again and again)?! Sometimes it’s more like going through infertility or miscarriage. Or wondering what your greater purpose is in life. Are you taking action on it or running from it? I’ve done both, still do. Here’s what it looks like for me, the stuff I usually don’t share out loud, but is practically a prerequisite for doing anything I care so much about it makes me want to chase it, run from it, and throw up. Good visual, right?

It’s February. Moves fast, right? And you’re like busy busy. At capacity. Your days are filled with to-do lists, an over-scheduled life, children and significant others that rely on you (for everything). Constantly moving and doing, but feeling like you’re not really accomplishing anything. The hamster wheel. Rinse and repeat. And you just survived 2020. You can sit back and coast on that, right? It’s become the reason (errrr, excuse) for everything. I see you. And I get it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can own your day rather than it owning you. You can be proactive and intentional rather than reactive and accidental.

When you go to business school you learn by studying successful companies. Starbucks. Costco. CVS. Apple. Their failures, successes. Every rise has many, many falls that come before. We see an end result. The spotlight on the “they made it” part. When, really, the entire company was built on failing. Failing and getting back up, trying again, trying different. On getting punched in the gut and returning to the arena. On being told this will not work / you will fail / you are not smart-rich-connected enough / save yourself and quit now / are you crazy? Big things happen on the other side of a thousand No’s, failures and disappointments.