Happy Mother’s Day

Today I am grateful to celebrate this day honoring all the mothers out there—Happy Mother’s Day.  I am grateful to my mother for bringing me into the world, for all she has done, for all she has taught me, for letting me know I’ve been loved.  I’m grateful to my grandmother and all the women before me for being the change, for creating a world where I could exist and create my family.  I am grateful to be a mother.   I can’t say I have an overly innate motherly instinct but I have formed a fiercely protective bond with my son.  There has been no relationship like it in my entire life.  It’s an entire change of who I was, a learning of who I could be, of who I really want to be.  Every choice is about what’s best for him until he learns to decide that for himself.  I haven’t been perfect—in fact I’m pretty sure I’ve already instilled all the patterns I was trying to break in him already.  But I know I love him like no other and I know that imperfect or not, I will always be there for him no matter what.  Because that is what mothering is: a constant presence of love and support to allow things to grow in their own time and in their own way.  Mothers in particular are hard on themselves as we have these expectations of what we are supposed to be able to accomplish and what we are supposed to be like and if we don’t look like some cross between June Cleaver and Superwoman we feel like we’ve failed.  It is no exaggeration to say this job is beyond 24/7—this is something that takes over our entire being, our souls.  This is why women get lost in motherhood: to grow the next generation we have to give pieces of ourselves so they take root.  And we just hope it is for the best.  We can only do our best and who we are is enough.    

Today I am grateful for being seen.  I’ve fought for years, nearly my entire life to be seen as I am. Instead it’s been what felt like a battle to be understood.  I went through so many different groups of people thinking I’d found those who understood me, who accepted me, only to be left out in some capacity.  Or treated like I was an inconvenience.  Or constantly having to explain myself if I wasn’t acting within the same norms/parameters that they saw me in—like if I was having an off day, I wasn’t allowed to be any different than my normal demeanor. It’s only over the last few years that I’m seeing those who truly accept us never make us feel like we have to be/do/say anything other than exactly what we normally would be/do or say.  There’s NO pressure there.  I’m not saying there’s NEVER pressure there, but I’m saying there’s never pressure to ACT in those groups.  There’s no need to put on airs or try to be something else.  No one makes us feel like we have to be someone else or like we need to behave a certain way.  As I move forward with new facets of my career, I see that it’s easier than I’ve been living it.  There’s n need to fight for anything with the right people.  It’s ease.  

Today I am grateful for acceptance.  I know I needed this reminder this week because there have been a lot of things up in the air.  Things I had no control over but still had to work on.  In this regard I’m talking about personal acceptance, specifically of circumstances.  Like, knowing I did the best I could and this is where I’m at—and it’s all ok, type of acceptance.  I spent so much time worrying about what people thought of me and trying to tailor their opinions, to curate their views on my character and demeanor.  I wanted everyone to think the best of me.  Perhaps that’s a bit of human nature, but I never learned to accept how things were, I always tried to make them align with my vision.  But with time, I know that it came down to how I felt about myself.  The more I accept that I am where I am and understand what works, that where I’m at isn’t where I’m ending, the easier it is to make the next choice to head where I’m at.  We can’t get stuck in the mud of what we think we should have done. 

Today I am grateful for support.  We had a tough lesson in friendship this weekend.  My son learned that sometimes the people you think are your friends really aren’t.  He learned that sometimes people only use us for what they can get from us.  He learned that sometimes friendship hurts.  I asked him what he thought that meant and he told me he thought it meant that no one likes him.  I immediately told him no—it means that sometimes people we think are for us turn out  not to be, and we have to learn that it has nothing to do with us.  The right people, the right support doesn’t leave us questioning who we are or if we are good enough.  Especially our worth.  We’ve immersed ourselves in the sport life and I will tell you being around this team has taught us all how to be part of something again.  The support found in this group is a reminder that a common goal can drive an entire group of people to support each other so everyone is set up to succeed.  Success depends on each person doing their part and the team surrounding that person so they are able to do their part—and so on and so on until every succeeds.

Today I am grateful for chaos.  Truth be told I HATE chaos.  It confuses me, it unsettles me, it unbalances me and I have fought my entire life to get away from it.  Probably spent more energy thinking about ways to avoid chaos than the actual chaos I faced in some circumstances.  There is something to be said for the power of the mind and its ability to create concern…I digress.  Right now I’m experiencing a lesson in how chaos teaches us.  I’m unbelievably blessed to be able to make some changes in my home right now, make it more my own.  But in order to do that, I need to tear down everything that exists.  Since this project is something we’re doing on our own it will take some time and the house is in a state of utter destruction.  Torn up floor, boxes everywhere, walls coming down, walls going up, furniture moved, getting rid of stuff, putting new things in place.  And the thing is this: in order to see the big picture of what we are trying to achieve, we have to stay calm enough to see the vision, to keep the vision in mind at all times.  We have to be willing to let go of what we know/what we knew.  I’m letting go of what I carried including my initial vision into this house for what I’ve learned as I’ve settled in here, as I’ve learned more about who I am.  So in chaos as I’ve always said—I am firmly reminded there is creation.  It’s beautiful even if it doesn’t look like it.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.