When I was pregnant with my first child, a woman I admired told me, “Get ready to have everyone care about your child more than you.”

I laughed (one of those sympathetic laughs), but it stayed with me. It felt like a sad omission. She had two very small children; did she feel like the people in her life (including me) cared about her babies more than we cared about her? Did she feel forgotten in her own life?

In the days that followed, I mentally swept aside her advice. I decided that while it might be her truth, it wasn’t going to be mine. (And then I vowed to check in on her more, to ask her open-ended questions about her life, her self, without always bringing up the children.)

And then I became a mom.

Truthfully, I didn’t experience the kind of outside abandonment or indifference about which I’d been warned. My husband, my parents, my in-laws, my family and friends showed up for me, and I’m so grateful for my soft and supported entry into motherhood.

But I did experience abandonment.

You want to know who became indifferent to me? Who seemed to care less whether I was thriving or not?

Me.

I was so focused on caring for my first son, and then, two years later, my second son, that I placed my own self on the backburner of my brain.

This is far from uncommon, I know.

Moms, parents, caregivers are known (and often culturally expected) to sacrifice themselves in the name of nurture. The forest of self-abandonment appears as an inevitable rite of passage in motherhood, where you can lose yourself for a day, then weeks, then months, even years.

Before you know it, what started as a little walk in those woods – skipping a shower, a meal, a class, a meet-up with friends – becomes your new normal.

And, frankly, living in the forest can become a badge of pride. I mean, damn! Look at how much you can DO from here! Look how much you can support your family, even from the deepest, dankest parts of these woods! How freaking impressive. How very capable you are. You MUST be superhuman.

As long as your children are happy and thriving, and you seem to be surviving, it’s easy to convince yourself you haven’t actually taken up residence there.

No treehouses here, you think. I can leave at any time! Look, I’ll take a shower! I’ll get my nails done! I’ll buy concert tickets to prove it!

And you trick yourself with little glimpses beyond the trees. Little field trips out of the forest. But after each outing, back to the branches you go.

It makes you wonder: why do we stay in there?

I think sometimes the forest makes us feel righteous. Look what I sacrifice for you, my darlings. Look how much I give of myself so that you may flourish.

And… and this is the painful part… not many people will notice whether you’re deep in the trees or not. People notice if children are neglected, but we adults? We mothers? We’re the true masters of disguise. We can hide in plain sight.

Plus, these days, being A Tired Mom, A Frazzled Mom, A Hot Mess Mom has become such a common identity that you can disappear inside it without anyone worrying. No need to sound the alarm, she’s just in her overwhelmed-and-underslept mama era. A busy boss babe of babies.

That’s how I identified, anyway. I was mothering by day and building a freelance marketing business all night. My personal self took the hit, but I even wore that wound with pride. Sure, I’m not taking care of my self, but see? See how beautiful our home is, our boys are? See how successful my work is?

Let me distract all of us with all of my doing for others. You’ll be so dazzled by my ability to nurture everyone that you won’t notice (or at least mention) my self-neglect.

Pre-pandemic, when my boys were babies and little guys, I made everything from scratch. We were a true “ingredient house,” not a snack house. I made applesauce, cookies, granola, bread, pasta sauce, meatballs, muffins, even cheesy crackers.

I made our dinners every night with intention and care.

But I skipped breakfast and snacked on whatever I could scrounge up quickly for lunch.

I took the boys to the beach or the park every day, prioritized naps and bedtimes, and bathed them lovingly every night with my husband. And I operated on four or five hours of sleep, gained sixty pounds in four years, and didn’t prioritize my own needs.

I was, however, extraordinarily good at anticipating what other people needed.

And eventually it occurred to me: if I cared for myself with as much love and intention as I cared for my sons, I would be unstoppable.

So why didn’t I?

Around eight years ago, I was deeply unhappy in my body. I was frustrated that I had had my last baby four years earlier and still hadn’t “dropped the baby weight.” I was annoyed with myself. Frustrated. Ashamed.

I felt capable in so many areas of my life, so why couldn’t I make myself do this?

And eventually I realized something that changed the way I understood not only my body, but my relationship with myself:

You cannot make a positive change from a negative place.

I had spent years trying to change myself by not loving myself. Punish myself into action. Shame myself into change. It did not work. It does not work.

And I started to see the connection between the mother who would lovingly prepare a nourishing breakfast for her children and forget to eat one herself, and the woman who believed she could hate herself into becoming someone she liked better.

Both were forms of abandonment. I didn’t need punishment, I needed nurture.

I needed to pay myself (my habits, fears, desires, all of me) attention.

That was about eight years ago, and while the pandemic threw a big wrench in my self-nurturing process, I’ve learned how to be in a much more loving relationship with myself.

So, today I get to choose: old habits or new? More of the same, or something better? Something more loving? Something more supportive? Something where I get to be honored? Something where I honor myself, perhaps?

There are essays, books, and podcasts dedicated to why mothers lose themselves and how we find our way back.

This is not one such essay. This is about the stuff I actually do.

Because even today, as the mother of fourteen- and twelve-year-olds who can walk to the store and buy milk for me, who have their own phones and text their grandparents without my reminding them, who become more independent daily… even now, the forest calls to me.

I’m just much better at recognizing the entrance, and I’ve taught myself ways to stay the fuck away from that forest.

Here are five things helping me do it right now, this summer, this week.

A swimmer’s sip of water

I am a water baby. A Taurus sun, Libra moon, and Virgo rising. And a water baby.

I’ve been swimming since childhood and recently I became a member of a swim club in town and swim in the San Francisco Bay multiple times a week (if you know me from social media, you know I can’t shut up about bay swimming – I’m obsessed).

I can tread water in a pool forever and just be content. Water makes me feel like myself.

So, when I feel overwhelmed, or feel myself slipping away from my own care, ideally? I would just go swimming. But, alas, I cannot just bail on life and go jump in the bay whenever the whim strikes. I can’t always jump in water to fix it.

But I can drink some.

For me, drinking water has become a tiny, little reprieve. A minute to stop at the counter, pour water at the temperature I like, notice that I have clean drinking water available to me, and just…drink it.

Aaaaaand, I also make it weird.

Well, whimsical. Here’s how: I drink water at home from a big, wide-mouth quart-sized mason jar. Before I take a sip, I picture the Cupid’s bow on my upper lip as a tiny diving platform.

And standing on it is a retro bombshell swimmer. Think ruched sweetheart-neckline bathing suit, va-va-voom hair, Marilyn Monroe/Sophia Loren bombshellian energy. (I LOVE a retro bombshell moment.)

Okay, you with me? Picture our girl perched on the lip, and every time I take a sip, she dives in.

My little bombshell babe mermaid gets to jump into the water, swim and do flips, feel free, and have a little splash-around time.

Is this ridiculous? Absolutely.

Does it work? Again, absolutely.

It’s fleeting, but fun, and for those few seconds, I’m not rushing. I’m not performing. I’m not escaping. I’m not anyone’s wife, mom, daughter, friend, employee, whatever.

I’m just drinking my water and feeling something joyful and playful.

I know I am worthy of a few minutes of hydration, but making it more whimsical makes me actually do it. Sometimes caring for yourself can really be that small – the size of a teeny-tiny, magical, mermaidesque Marilyn Monroe.

Elevate, don’t escape

Something I’ve started asking myself recently is: Am I escaping, or am I elevating?

I’ve written about being “a maximizer” before – someone who is great at amplifying what already exists. I can see how to enhance almost anything, and when given the chance, I do.

But, I’ve also been an escape artist. I used to smoke socially (I know, I know) in my twenties, and cigarettes became little procrastination breaks.

I’ll have a cigarette and then do my homework, I’d think. I’ll have a cigarette and then go to class. I’ll have a cigarette and then go into the library.

Even though I stopped smoking over twenty years ago, I realized I had transferred some of that behavior to other moments.

I’ll have this little snack and then I’ll do the thing, I’d think, standing aimlessly in front of the pantry.

I’ll scroll Threads before I buckle down and work, I’d say to myself.

I’m going to have to do something hard today, so I’ll pre-treat myself first.

None of those things is inherently bad. Food is morally neutral; I don’t count calories or diet. I very rarely drink anymore, and occasionally love a THC gummy. And, let’s be honest, I love a good scroll sesh. But each time I chose to indulge in whatever activity was in front of me, what was my intention?

Meanwhile, give me a vacation, a celebration, breakfast with my best friend, Disneyland, a party? You can bet your biscuits I’m going to indulge and experience the abundance and beauty and deliciousness of being alive. I know in my core I love to elevate a moment (or an entire weekend with the girls) and I don’t judge myself for that.

What I’m interested in noticing is when I am using something to avoid my own life. Because getting in touch with yourself requires knowing what you actually want.

Lately, I’ve started thinking about two versions of me: my youngest self and my highest self.

My youngest self is joy, optimism, hope. She is everything I believed in and dreamed about before I learned all the rules about who I was supposed to be.

My highest self is the version of me who acts in my own best interest. Who knows what I want from this one life and makes choices that move me toward it.

I want to make them both so fucking happy.

So when I’m standing in front of the pantry, or stuck scrolling, or about to avoid the thing I know I actually want to do, I ask:

Are we escaping? Or are we elevating?

Are we trying to avoid the thing we’re supposed to do by scrolling? And are we elevating an already amazing moment with something that truly brings us joy, or moves us closer to who and where we want to be?

I can escape and I can elevate. The choice is mine, and I should choose, if not wisely, then with clarity and awareness.

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A solo silent disco

So… this one is extremely sophisticated and scientific. You are welcome, but are you ready?

I lock myself in my bathroom and dance.

That’s it. Oh! Actually, I also wear headphones so no one can hear me or knows what I’m doing.

Ta-da! Behold, my genius.

Truthfully, especially during the summer, when my kids are home and I work from home, the bathroom is sometimes the only place where nobody has eyes on me. So, I put on headphones, close the door, blast one song, and move.

It’s not poised or pretty. It’s not even always dancing. Sometimes I just wiggle my arms. Sway my hips. Jiggle everything. Flail. Shake out one leg and then the other. Sometimes I close my eyes and wobble my head.

This is not Cool Mom Shit. This is Regulated Mom Shit, and I think that’s a much better thing.

Florence and the Machine’s “Shake It Out” is excellent for obvious reasons, but Dancing Machine by the Jackson 5, and my perennial favorite, “I Knew You Were Waiting for Me” by Aretha Franklin and George Michael are other winners.

I’ve done this before making difficult phone calls and before sitting down to intimidating work and when I couldn’t motivate myself out of the blahs.

The solo silent disco shifted the crappy energy, the inertia, that weird “I’m in trouble because I haven’t done XYZ” feeling.

Maybe the feeling wasn’t completely gone, but it was loose and lessening.

I remembered this week that when my boys argue, after they talk through their feelings, I often have them shake out their bodies before we move toward a solution.

I tell them it helps get that frustrated, hurt, negative energy out, because it does. They are always able to loosen up, laugh a little, and then talk about how they’d like to move forward, and what they need to do or what they’d like to have happen as a solution.

“Moving makes us unstuck,” I used to say.

It only took fourteen years of parenting to take my own damn advice: when tense, when stuck… MOVE.

Follow the golden thread

Okay, so I need to preface this with: I’m kinda on a woo journey, and dabbling with deciding how I want to interact with divine energy, which I interpret as source/universal energy or what others might call God.

Anyway, with that out of the way, you also need to know that I’m reading about honoring Mother Earth, spirituality, and all that jazz, and I also have become obsessed with swimming in the bay for the last 18 months. Like, I want to do it every day of my life.

So, I was super proud of myself to have planned a mid-day swim last week. I organized my work, talked to my kids, and created a two-hour window where I could leave the house at lunchtime, swim, and come home to finish my workday.

I changed into my suit at home, giddy that I was making this swim break happen.

Then I drove to the water, found parking, and?

Sat in my car scrolling.

Motherfucker.

Here I was with free time – a luxury! But scrolling on my phone was not why I got up early, worked outside normal hours, put on my suit, and drove to the water. I was sitting directly outside the thing I wanted to do, knowing exactly what would feel good to me, and choosing the easiest thing immediately available instead.

Hello, Forest? You busy? Got a table for one at that abandonment place?

I noticed what I was doing, and I said to myself: Universe, whoever is out there, help me make a move.

And I shit you not, I suddenly pictured an ethereal older woman with a crown of beautiful silver hair floating in front of me. She had a golden thread attached to my chin.

(Not a perimenopausal whisker, to be clear. A legit, Rumpelstiltskin-would-love-this-shit thread.)

She gently pulled it upwards and out… and I gathered my bag and opened the door and left the car and walked to the Club.

There was no shame in it. No, You idiot, you came all this way and now you’re scrolling?

It felt like she, this vision in my mind, this guide from the Universe was saying: This way, babe.

She smiled at me, and pulled me along, saying, No big deal, lady. I got you. We’re going over here, this is what you want.

Whether she was God, source, my highest self, my youngest self, some imaginary silver-haired angel-mermaid elder, I have no idea.

But I felt cared for. Since then, when I’m stuck between what is easiest and what I know I really want, I picture that golden thread and my ethereal, wise elder pulling me gently, smiling, allowing me to float behind her.

She’s not dragging me, she’s guiding me.

No, no. Over here, Love, she says.

She’s course correcting and redirecting, the way we guide toddlers away from their umpteenth attempt at certain injury.

And, not to be a Carrie Bradshaw about it, but it got me thinking then, and has me asking now: what would someone who is truly, completely on your side guide you toward next?

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Remember who is actually in the arena

This last practice is one I return to whenever fear of judgment starts making me smaller.

But Kate, you think, aren’t you too old to care?

Absolutely. And I’m an eldest-slash-only daughter. A people pleaser. A woman. A mother. Someone who has had to unpack how thoroughly I connected my worth to my productivity, helpfulness, and ability to make other people happy.

Even at 45, I’m still learning that I need boundaries.

I still sometimes stop myself from going for what I want because I’m afraid of disappointing someone or contradicting their idea of me. If someone thinks I am a capable, smart, responsible good girl, and suddenly I’m out here being sloppy and messy and swearing on the internet, what will they think?

Here’s shit that pops into my head, still, after doing years of worthiness work:

• Who am I going to let down by being my whole self?

• Whose opinion of me am I going to wreck?

• How embarrassing for me to be my full self!

This is where I return to the idea of the arena. I learned about the arena concept, and whether or not to fight the critic within it, by reading Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly. She got it from an old Theodore Roosevelt speech.

Basically, the concept is: “If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback.”

If someone isn’t in the fight with me, if they don’t know me, if I haven’t invited them to have a voice in my journey, why am I handing them authority over it?

There is a “correct” way to be, show up, and act in this world, according to your values.

And there is a “correct” way to be, show up, and act in this world, according to arbitrary standards you never technically agreed to, but you did absorb.

Those are not the same thing.

Social media makes this harder. It makes us feel like we need to perform rather than exist. I catch myself curating instead of living, telling the hard story through the beautiful lens, imagining the opinions of people who may think about me for three seconds, think “this fucking idiot bitch” and never see my username again.

And. I logically know their opinions about me are none of my business. I believe I get to take up space. I know and believe I get to do the thing that makes me feel alive.

But it can be hard to act without fear of judgment. So I remember the arena, and I remember my ultimate goal: make my youngest and my highest self so fucking happy and proud.

That is my job. Just: be my best self.

And if doing the things that make them proud makes somebody else cringe?

So be it. I wrote that just now and thought:

• SO, be it.

• So, BE it.

• So, be IT.

So. Be. It.

I don’t want to squander this life by worrying about people who aren’t even in the arena – in my arena. I don’t want to waste days escaping myself or waste too much time scrolling instead of swimming.

And for the love of whoever/whatever is out there, I don’t want to let inertia win, when all I needed was to shake my ass to Florence and her mighty mighty machine in the bathroom.

Of course, these aren’t magic fixes, but they are my ways of reminding myself that I’m here and alive and worthy of it all.

They’re my reminder that I can gently guide myself toward the life I say I want, instead of shaming myself for not already being there.

And sure, the forest still calls. But I know how (and why, and when) to choose another path.

Turns out, it actually is all love.

The first movie we ever took our children to was Cars 3.

The boys were freshly five and three years old. In fact, the day we went to the movies as a family was our first born’s fifth birthday, ten days after our younger son had turned three.

By some families’ standards, we waited a while to bring the kids to the movies – we’ve all been in a theater and heard a toddler ask a question during a quiet part, or watched as a parent swayed their baby back to sleep in the aisle.

But Dique and I didn’t want to bring our kids until we thought they could sit for a whole film and actually enjoy it. It wasn’t totally for our sons’ benefits – we were selfish. WE wanted to enjoy the movies! We love the movies – it was something that connected us the very night we met.

I studied film in college and can talk your ear off about diegetic vs. non-diegetic sound, how Kubrick’s work is more European in nature than American, and which Hitchcock movie is his work of art (ahem, Rear Window). I think learning I was a film major intrigued Dique, because he just loves movies. We’ve been watching them, re-watching them, reading about them, and talking about them for twenty years now.

So, yeah, we didn’t want our little kids to take us out of the moment, the magic of a theater.

But in 2017, our boys had become obsessed with both the Cars and Planes franchises. We watched one of each at least once a week. And while the Cars movies are a delight, the Planes ones are, well, worse, but that didn’t stop the very frequent viewings. Nor did it stop the incessant requests to listen to the soundtrack when the screens were off.

And I sang Brad Paisley’s song “All In” so often to my boys at bedtime, it makes me verklempt now, thinking back to those words I still know by heart –

“Without hesitation and the face of fear and doubt

Every five alarm backdraft ‘bout to burn down

There’s smoke and flames and everybody else is getting out

I’m all in.”

And during those long, lonely days of parenting little kids, I saw that song as a metaphor, speaking to my role in the lives of my boys. Without hesitation I would do whatever it took to be there for my children. I’d do it scared, I’d do it shaking. But I’d do it.

Becoming a mother made me a braver woman; it fortified my beliefs and my backbone.

But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about the movie theater, and how that one first family viewing still lives in my head and heart. We went to the first showing on a Sunday morning, weeks after Cars 3 had actually come out. We knew there was a chance our boys would be chatty and fidgety, and wanted to be respectful of other patrons.

We were living in The Sunset District of San Francisco then, out by Golden Gate Park and the beach. The N train stopped right in front of our door, so we hopped on and headed downtown. We got to the theater nice and early – the mall was still closed but the theater’s elevators let us upstairs. Dique’s sister met us for the momentous occasion, and while I can’t remember if we five were the only ones in the theater, I do know it was all but empty.

We got our snacks (probably the boys’ favorite part in hindsight – it still is a #1 reason to go to the movies). We hit the bathrooms one last time and took our seats, raising up the leg rests and arm rests to get extra cozy together.

And then, the sound surrounded us, the lights went down, then up again, and the movie started.

We were silenced, mesmerized, and settled in for a fun movie.

I snapped these pics of their first time at the movie theater, their little heads with little boy haircuts. I remember them both asking questions during the quiet bits, and getting fidgety after a while. One needed the bathroom, one needed more water. But all in all, it was such a fun movie to experience together.

D, age 5, watching Cars 3 in the movie theater.

L, age 3, watching Cars 3 in the movie theater.

Since that first time, nine years ago, our family has been to many movies together – even with a two-year sabbatical thanks to being uber-cautious during the height of the Covid pandemic.

Plus, we’ve hit up every school-sponsored movie night, and taken our children to see movies at the SF Symphony, where our local, world-class orchestra plays along to the soundtrack of Home Alone, Encanto, Empire Strikes Back, and The Muppets Christmas Carol.

Going to the movies is one of those things we all just really get excited about and love doing together.

So, it was weird to be sitting alone, in the mall, across from the movie theater, where my sons and their friends watched A Minecraft Movie (for the second time). Without me. Without any grown ups they know in attendance.

It’s one of those things that, of course, happens throughout the course of parenthood:

• First, you introduce your children to this magical experience.

• Then you experience it with them again and again.

• Then, they want to experience it with *their* people, not you.

To be clear this is EXACTLY what we want to happen! As parents we hope we’re raising confident kids who can make friends and make plans and not need or want you all the time. We quite literally are fostering independence every day.

As I (sarcastically) say often, if I do my job right, they’ll leave. And then I triple check and count the years we have left all together – for sure, guaranteed – under the same roof. And I wish I could slow time down, because I love this part.

But a key part of the era we’re in is “the stretch” – the stretch between our sons wanting to be independent and still needing us, even wanting us sometimes. When they’d rather go out with friends than stay home with us.

There’s goodness to be found here: the boys are creating friendships, making plans, honing interests, exercising independence. And we get a little more free time.

I, for example, got tomato soup in a sourdough bread bowl from Boudin’s downstairs and sat at the table across from the movie theater lobby and wrote, trying to remember exactly how in the hell we got here so fast.

Because no one tells you that – sooner than you think – your children will ask to see a movie and when you say, “sure, we can go see that!”

They reply, “Oh, I was thinking of going with my friends.”

It’s just another one of those unmentioned milestones for kids/tweens/teens: going to the movies with your friends – alone. What a joy! What a fun thing to do, to feel so grown up and independent and capable. I’m so happy for them.

And what a milestone for me, too, as a mom who often feels so responsible, so needed and necessary. What a trip it is to just be here for the ride home.

We brought our firstborn home from the hospital on July 11th. It was a Wednesday.

I’d asked my husband to “take the backroads” to be extra safe — but we live in San Francisco. There aren’t exactly backroads. There is, however, Golden Gate Park, so he drove slowly past the Academy of Sciences, the Botanical Garden, Mother’s Meadow, and the little duck pond at 25th and Lincoln.

I remember seeing people waiting at intersections. Folks stood with their bike frames between their legs, children clasped their grownup’s hand, a dog looked up at its owner. I remember seeing just how ordinary it all was. How typical. How obviously normal that day was — THAT day, the first day I ever had my very own baby in my very own car.

I remember thinking, “for everyone else, it’s just Wednesday. But for us, it’s the best day of our lives.”

I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember wanting to yell out of the window, “hey everybody! There’s a new baby in here! Brand new! And he’s ours!”

It was surreal. I couldn’t quite believe we actually got to bring this baby — this perfect, pink, 22” long with two bars of soap for feet baby — home. To our home.

Just like that, we were parents.

Just like that, I was a mom.

My mom likes to say that I learned to walk at ten months old to put my first doll to bed. I stood up, shakily, clutching the little bundle, and waddled my diaper-clad behind across the room to a little pink play crib.

I wasn’t a Barbie girl growing up, I was an Oshkosh B’gosh overall wearing child who played hard with the neighborhood boys, riding bikes in our small farming and fishing town.

We’d spend an afternoon in the woods a few blocks from our house, building forts or riding our bikes in dry creek beds. Or, we’d play kick-the-can in our cul de sac and climb the trees at the end of the block, hollering at the cars on Highway 1. Then, when the sets of brothers who lived across the street and next door and a block over went home, and my own big brother went to soccer practice, I retreated to my very pink bedroom to play default parent to my vast collection of baby dolls.

I was their mother, always. I named them, cared for them, and sat them around my room in a circle, in order of preference (not very “pretty good mom” of my young self, to be honest). But I had a Top 5, and an additional, I don’t know, twenty other dolls I tended to daily for years.

Truly, I played with my dolls for longer than one’s friends think is cool, even good friends.

I just thought babies were the best. The very best.

I still do.

And in the car, fourteen years ago today, as my husband carefully navigated us through Golden Gate Park from the hospital to our home in the Sunset District, I became overwhelmed at my good fortune.

I’d waited thirty years to have my very own baby. And I couldn’t quite believe my biggest dream had come true.

We say our eldest son made us a family — which, of course, is not how families work. Anyone can make any family any way they want. But my husband and I had both wanted children, and hoped that we’d be able to have them. It was a topic of conversation early on in our relationship, and we started tossing around baby names the minute we got engaged.

No “A” names. Can’t have any “A. Holts” running around (say it out loud, quickly, and you’ll understand why). No “P” or “B” names, for that matter, either. Playground teasing can be tough, and we didn’t need to give future bullies that easy ammunition.

(A shame, really, because Andrew and Anna were at the top of my list. And I’ve always been a Paul Girl, alas.)

But we found the right name for our firstborn before he was born, and I’m happy to say it suits him as a teenager, too.

His little brother came along almost exactly two years later, and that sweet, long-limbed ball of energy made our family complete.

Ironic, really, because all of my baby dolls had been girls with names that started with a K or a C. Now I had two boys, D and L.

And when L was born, we brought him home on a Wednesday, too. And again Dique drove so carefully from the hospital to our home, slowly through Golden Gate Park on a partly-cloudy day in June. Only this time, we had a toddler and baby in the backseat.

Again, I looked out the window and noticed the everyday-ness all around us. How everyone was having a Wednesday, and I was having the best day of my life, hand-in-hand with my love, our two little loves in the back, already becoming friends.

It was my biggest dream to become a mom. And fourteen years in, I feel lucky and grateful every day to get to experience life this way. I just love being their mom.

And while I’m not the best, I’m not the worst, either. I’d say I’m pretty good, so here we are.

I’ve been taking notes, learning lessons (so much learning, so many lessons), and capturing memories in journals and on social media for years. This Substack is where I’m hoping to put it all together so I can savor what we had and have as the seasons of life continue.

Thanks for reading.