08/25/2026
When I was 24 years old, I was married, had just had my first baby and the second baby was on the way. One in my arms and one in my belly. I was navigating things that I had ZERO blueprint for (and even less money). I had a mom that I couldn’t have a real conversation with, and I had burned so many bridges - just by being me (bold and aggressive) - that all I could do was sink or swim.
I never knew my life would take so many turns. And I’m processing that there are still so many turns left to take.
I have spent 24 years - half my life - making sure everything that I could control didn’t fall apart, because three people were definitely depending on me. Definitely. I never really cared or thought about what was happening to me, or what could happen to me…..I only wanted to do the right thing for them. Whatever that even meant, nobody told me the best thing and the right thing aren’t always the same.. I just never wanted them to feel it know how much struggling the struggle really was.
Now that those three people are (legally) adults, my entire mindset is shifting. My entire identity is transforming. My purpose is changing. It’s like having to navigate another life with no map. Again. Some days it’s amazing, having built in people who care for you, while you step into the most free version of yourself you’ve ever been. And some days it’s the loneliest, having people who don’t understand what you’ve gone through, just so that they can understand how. and why, you’re changing now - because they are just starting at the point where you were half a lifetime ago, while feeling equally destabilized as you did then (they just don’t know it yet, because they need double the life experience to get to that understanding).
It’s crazy how all these changes and transitions can create tension before they create understanding. It’s even crazier that that understanding can take a couple decades to arrive at. What’s even crazier is that my own mother had her first baby in her arms while her second was in her belly, when she was 19. And she did it alone. Andi had ZERO clue about what she was going through and how I was making it so much harder. I’m sure she thought my life was much easier than hers….and she was right. It just took her leaving the earth for me to finally get to my understanding of what is really going on - LIFE and CYCLES.
Parenting is THE hardest thing I’ve ever done, and yet the most incredibly shaping experience of my life - as a mother and as a daughter. That’s funny - parenting was just as hard for me as the daughter as it has been as the mother.
Looks like I’m just going to have to be patient, while enjoying the highs and enduring the lows. I’m in my Fifth Act, and being a parent is the only thing that I have carried and will carry with me through this journey. Until the day that I die. With ZERO map. And none of us, the people in my camp, have ever done this before. Not me, not my kids, not my husband.
Let’s go 💕
