As I sat in Jessica’s office she could already observe the medication she had prescribed for my anxiety was making a difference. “I didn’t know life could be this way. I don’t panic about my kids playing outside in the front yard. I’m not terrorized by racing thoughts at night. I don’t feel like I’m…
Welcome to the mother ‘hood’: Where you will forever be chasing how to be a better mom. Motherhood is a place where you have no control over anything. The time and day no longer matter. Your purse has officially become a dumpster fire. Showering is optional, coffee is not. Sleep will be nonexistent for the next 18 years, and everyone will have an opinion on how you handle the hood. You will repeat yourself a hundred times just to get shoes on. You will never get to pee alone again and now you get to cross your legs when you sneeze.
This should be the official welcome declaration that is read in the tone of the Miranda Rights to every new mother as she waddles to the bathroom in her hospital mesh underwear just after birth.
At some point you’ll lose yourself.
I know I did, deep in the trenches of motherhood, being a wife, being an employee and everything in between.
I even lost myself to an illness that blindsided me.
But that’s the point isn’t it? Friendships are built on gritty, messy, imperfect everyday moments. Friendship like doesn’t happen overnight. And it reminds me what I tell my kids often, “The day you plant a seed is not the day you eat its fruit.” Friendship and community are like that. It’s built on a series of 1,000 little everyday moments, taking the time to invest in someone else. It’s built on answering the phone at 2 a.m. when you’re already exhausted from a teething toddler or a teen who missed curfew. It’s built on showing up for 40th birthday parties, and Juice Plus events.
It’s been said that everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. I’ve found the same to be true about marriage. Everybody wants to be married but no one wants to do the work. Having been married nearly 21 years I’m often asked how we make it work. Here’s the secret: Marriage isn’t…
Boldness has taken an interesting turn since childhood. As a girl growing up in the desert, being bold meant facing off with the rivers of flash floods. Or when I was in seventh grade, I punched a boy in the face for picking on my brother. I’m finding I’m not the same girl in…