real, raw motherhood
I am a daughter of God, an infinite soul locked into a finite body. Here on a journey of which I do not remember the beginning and for which I cannot imagine the end. The script is mysterious and sealed. Life is perfectly designed yet I am undeniably flawed. Making mistakes is inherently human but…
“Why am I not good? Why am I not perfect?”, my daughter lamented the other night. “You ARE good but you’re right, you are not perfect. That’s because nobody’s perfect. Your Daddy is not perfect. I am not perfect…But… You know what I’m perfect at? I’m perfect at making progress. That’s all that’s required. To…
It’s official. I am not her hero any more. I thought I would have had more time. But seven years is all I got. Halloween was last night. For the past three years, we’ve gone to the same neighborhood a few minutes drive from our house. Before sunset, everyone costumed gathers for an informal parade…
To read the backstory about the circumstances in which I wrote this essay (3 am on a particularly challenging parenting day), please head here. For the sake of transparency and “artistic honesty”, I decided to publish this essay knowing that I will probably be judged for its content. This is for all the moms who…
There was a crazy lady in my laundry room the other day. She was yelling and frantically moving about the small space. She pushed past my husband and shoved him against the wall, then proceeded to take our soaking wet clothes out of the washing machine while mumbling angry words under her breath. It was…
I received a mean text message a few days ago. It took me quite by surprise as it came from someone I liked; someone I thought liked me; so much so that my first reaction was to think it was a joke. My reply asked just that: is it a joke? Unfortunately it wasn’t. The…
It’s been a rough morning. One of those mornings, when my daughter decides that she doesn’t want to do what I ask her to do (in this case, read a page from her early reader) and I have no patience to deal with it. One of those mornings when everything gets mixed up in my…
As my friend drove us home from the grocery store, I wondered aloud: “Why oh why must motherhood be so hard?” And she replied: “It’s hard only because you care.” Being a perfect mother is impossible. Being a great mother is a tall order. Being a good mother is challenging. Challenged I am every day…
I have been working a lot lately. Working on a brand new website. A redesign has been due for years but was not a priority. We had other things on our plate. Things like buying a house, raising a baby and recovering from major surgery. In spring of this year, a friend, whose website we…
At a business I patronize weekly, a couple of people voiced grievances about me and the owner called to address the issue. It wasn’t a right or wrong kind of situation. Just the result of miscommunication or more accurately lack of communication since noone had talked to me directly. To my own surprise, I didn’t…