Childhoodtake2!

In my best and worst moments, I break down.
When I feel so loved,
when I am overwhelmed,
when I am stressed,
when you reach another milestone,
when I am sad, when my world is covered in blue,
when I am frustrated,
the list is endless.

Because I cry.

For you
for me
for my work
for the people I haven't even met
for what I see on TV
for what we are becoming
for who we were
for who I want to be
for who I want you to be
for what I love
for what I hate
for what I am fearful of
the list is endless.

Because I cry.

I cry because you are so small it is crushing.
And I cry because I worry that the world will crush you.
I cry because I feel as though I fail you.
I cry because I look at you late at night and I cannot believe you are here.
I cry because every part of you is so tiny and so so big.

I cry because your big makes me small.
I cry because you crush me.
I cry because you wow me.
I cry because you sleep with your hands folded in prayer right by your face.
I cry because your hair reminds me so much of mine.
I cry because your eyes remind me of dad.
I cry because I feel as though I have lost important years and moments with you.
I cry because I know I will never get them back.

I cry because your small and your big are all too much for my heart.
I cray because holding this much love for all of you at times feels as though my heart if broken.
I cry because when I met you, I gave up a part of myself, a version of my life, that I still miss.
I cry because when I hold you, I wouldn't have it any other way.
I cry because I will look back and realize how much I will miss all of this, and not be able to ever tell you that.
I cry because you picked me to be your mom and I am too lucky and I don't deserve it, I don't deserve you.

I cry because you are so new
I cry because you are so old
I cry because this is your first time living this life
and I cry because I can tell one of you has already done this and has come back to make something right.

I cry because I know your innocence is not something I can protect.
I cry because I know I have to let you live this life.
I cry because I know I need to hold my tongue while you make mistakes,
ones that I could stop you from making, ones that I have already made.
I cry because I know I have to let you go, each day a little more.

I cry because you still ask to hold my hand.
I cry because you still need so much of me.
I cry because most of my words, my reactions are now remembered by you.
I cry because that is what will have you decide what to tell me when.

I cry because as a mother, I never have a day off.
I cry because I am always on, I am always yours.
I cry because I gave you my body, to live in, to live off of, to use as comfort, and I always will.
I cry because you made me see me for who I really am.I cry because you made me realize that beauty doesn't include a mirror.
I cry because you make me feel...more.

I cry from exhaustion, this is a big one for me.
I cry from the tired bones I carry, from the weight of you and family and life.
I cry from the heavy and I cry because I will never feel light again.

I cry because it is cleansing and allows me to keep going and the one thing I always have to do, is keep going.

I cry for you little one,
because your little is fleeting.

And I cry for me.
The list is endless
because I cry.

Every Friday we unite for five minutes to write on one word. Only five minutes, that's all we get, that's all we have. And then, right where we are, no edits or second-thoughts, we publish those words. This week, we write on control.
Go.

This is my word.
This is my mission.
This is my calling, control.
The irony is that I left a home of control,
I left a home of feeling like I had no control,
and I took off.
What started as a stand that I was in charge and in control of me
quickly turned into an anthem of control of everything.
My life, theirs, the world, loss of control is so difficult for me.

And even though I met a person that allows me to feel as though I am in control, even though he is my partner in every way,
the more I want.
The more I fight for it.
The more I put on my fighting gloves and am in pain when I get knocked down from something out of my control.

This year, my new anthem is more.
And with that, I have to let go...more.
I have to let them go, more.
I have to let them decide, more.
I have to let them be, more.
I have to let them choose, more.
I have to let them figure out, more.
I have to let them conclude, more.

Because I am not in control of anything other than my reactions.
And I need to get a handle on those reactions, more.
I have to be their guide, their rock, more.
I have to be more of their joy.

Because the one thing I learned, the big lesson I took away,
was the more control you put on your kids, your life, your world, the more you are spun out of control.
The more the universe takes over.
The more your kids rebel and fight you, instead of turn toward you.
The more you lose, while trying to keep it all together.

And so, my little faces, it is time I give you the wheel and I turn some of the control over to you.
Because that clearly tells you that I don't just love you, but I trust you.
You've got this.

Stop.

All this anger, all this confusion, and for what?
I have spent so many of my years living a life of anger.
One that builds confusion and fog.
One that I, and I alone, carry the burden of.
And why?
For what?
Who does it serve and what is the purpose of anger?
I want for nothing.
I have a life I built, on purpose.
Nothing in my life was by mistake.
I have smart children, who will also want for nothing.
I have a home, one that is all ours, one that we built.
I have love, in almost every corner, and still, there were so many days I sat in this fog of anger and resentment.
So many moments of anger, when things are all too loud.
So many years I have wasted, given up,
to anger.
So many moments that joy is destroyed by me, I held it in my hands, and I let it go.
Because that is what happens when you hold on to angry,
everything is dark and black.
And your world starts to not make sense.

And because I have promised them more,
it is time I start with joy.
Which means I have to be the one to change.
I have to find a way out of the anger I have allowed in.

It is time for joy.

Just the other day, I was reading a woman who's new way of life I admire say...
I want to make memories, not to do lists.
I want to feel the squeeze of my kids' arms around me, not the pressure I build out of stress.
The pressure I build, this part stuck with me.
I build up my own frustrations...
in my head, in my mind, in my life.
I create my own stress,
I am in charge of the to dos.
I am in charge of me and me alone.

And so, I begin my path to joy.
Joy in my heart. The kind that I feel all over my body.
I want to be joyful again.

It is time for joy.

Because an angry mom has a scowl, and her words are like ice.
Her body so tense
everything aches.
And as she tries to raise tiny humans to be good people,
as she tries to teach soft and love
she is not leading by example.
She is not their role model,
she is not their rock.

And it is time for joy.

Joy has the opposite effect.
Joy allows you to feel giddy
and everything instantly becomes light and bright.
Joy brings warmth.

So, this chip,
the one I carry,
the one I nurse,
the one I am raising and nurturing,
the one I spend so much of my time taking care of
it is time to put you to rest.
It is time I discard you.
You no longer have a place in my life.

Because it is time for joy.

This, is my life.
This is what my life looks and feels like and truth be told,
I wouldn't have it any other way.
Because it is the one I created,
for me
for them
for all of us.
This, is us.
All wrapped up into one.

And it is time I bring joy back into this life.

And my crazy attention to detail and organization can and should be used for good,
not the evil I have allowed.

It is time for joy.

Not just for me
but my god, for them too.
The little ones that look to me for how I am going to respond.
The ones that look to me for what they need to feel and react this moment.
The ones that are learning from me on what love looks like
how we treat others
what love sounds like
what joy and greatness need to be
how love always comes first.

It is time they feel my joy.

Every Friday we unite for five minutes to write on one word. Only five minutes, that's all we get, that's all we have. And then, right where we are, no edits or second-thoughts, we publish those words. This week, we write on refine.
Go.

Small changes.
Remove the impurities and make a change for the better.
Baby steps to who you actually want to be
not what the stresses of life have made you.
Always start small because everything else is too overwhelming.
Start at the beginning.
With the two kids that didn't know any better but thought they knew it all.
And start at joy
and remembering joy
and what brought you joy
and why.

Purify your life and take out all of the vulgar
all of the coarse
all of the hard edges
and come back to the real you.

Because when you refine something
you make it better
you remove flaws
and you start living the life you want.
One with intention
one with purpose
one with love.

This year, my promise to my family was more.
More of me
more love
more joy
more reminders of joy
I promised them I would refine who I am
as their mother
as a partner
as a leader and role model
as their rock.
I would start with small changes in me so that our family can come back to soft.

Throughout your life, you grow, you change.
And those you chose to spend your time with, they should make you want to be a better person.
They should bring out the best in you.
They should push you to grow more, step out of comfort and at times leave happy behind to find greatness.
They should make you refine your life
in the smallest of ways.

Stop.

The love you feel for your children is intense.
When you first see them, hold them, get to know them, and all of their little noises.
There is a day where that love grows into something so immense that you think you may just burst.
As your first year together progresses the love you experience is this strange and new, yet so familiar and old love story.
A love you have never felt before, but somehow always had.
The relationships you have with your small faces, they will fill you full
they will also deplete you.
They will consume you
but cannot be all of you.
They energize you and make you feel so light
at the same time exhausting a young mother and this love is a weight of family that is heavy.

As a new parent, the line between joy and depression is thin.
The line between confidence and anxiety is also thin.
As a seasoned parent, that line thins out even more.
Anxiety builds and the heavy weight of family sets in.

And all of us go through this cycle.
As they age, our knowledge of what is the right thing to do or say...
all of our parenting becomes less and less confident.
They are helpless and so are you.
They want answers but they didn't come with a manual
so you hold on and you keep trying and changing because so do they.

We don't talk about the darkness
we don't show it on social media
we don't want to feel like we are the only ones doing it all wrong
except that we are.
And without the comfort of a nonjudgmental relationship, we become even more isolated,
and the line thins.

This love for our children,
it thankfully destroys our ego
it changes so much of us
and it makes us trust less.
It makes us trust ourselves less
it makes us trust our person less
it makes us question too much.
And the line thins.

But somehow, in their little eyes
in their nurturing hugs, you find your hope.
You find your will
you find your strength
you find your place
and you find your space to be their mom.

Somehow, in the ones you are raising
you find your way.
Because they have always been forgiving.
From the moment you didn't know how to put on their clothes, or how to bathe them...
to the day you snap and scream something at them...
they always forgive, with open loving arms.
In their little selves, they realize how hard we are all trying.
And my promise is to give them a chance at a bad day or bad moments, as often as they give me mine.
And to always come back to love.

Every Friday we unite for five minutes to write on one word. Only five minutes, that's all we get, that's all we have. And then, right where we are, no edits or second-thoughts, we publish those words. This week, we write on middle.
Go.

I am in the middle of a reawakening.
I am in the middle of a transition.
I am in the middle of putting the pieces of me together again.
We are in the middle of a discovery.
We are in the middle of falling back in love, with all of us.
We are in the middle of traditions.
We are in the middle of kids, just kids being kids.
We are in the middle of deep family.

When you spend so long wishing your life away,
and denying love,
or connection,
or real family,
you wake up to realize how much you have missed
and you change courses.

Because at every state, we are in this together.
At every stage, we have to take care of one another.
In these four walls, in our neighborhood, in our community and globally.

Because although I am in the middle of chaos
and stubborn
and finding out who they are
and having to redefine who I am...
I am also in the middle of the most love I will ever receive.
I am also in the middle of the Friday family movie nights
and Sunday pancake breakfast
and kids laughing
and all the holiday magic we get to create
and believing in magic period
and night snuggled reading
and so much hand holding
and so many smooches
and so many nights in front of the fireplace
and so many "I love you"s
and so much sharing of your day
and so many smiles
and so much of your joy
and so happy to see us
and love, just simple, deep, heavy, filling love.

I am just where I wanted to be,
in the middle of it all.

Stop.

You hit me hard.
You wanted me to crumble, and I did.
You wanted me to break and walk away from all that I knew,
and I almost did that too.

You started with so much sickness
so much scary and unknown
so much stress and worry
so much testing and anger
so much sadness and confusion.

See, 2016 was the year that I swore up and down I would stop wishing time away.
That was my resolution, I would stop wishing my life away.
Because for as long as I can remember me, I was always the person that would say, I just need to get through...fill in the blank.
And then one day I woke up and said enough, I have wished it all away and no more.
This is my life, I can either change it or live it and I am choosing both.
But 2016 was a tough one, all around.
And so, I say a very welcomed good-bye to you and I am dusting myself off and trying...
all over again.

Each year, I feel like my theme with resolutions circles around the word less...
less worry, less stress, less stuff.
So this year, I am going the opposite direction.
New year, new me. And this year, the word is more.
MORE!
More laughter
more fun
more me
more us
more them
more who I really am, not this angry person I have become
more time
more opportunities
more adventures
more trying
more new
more for my business
more of what I love
more love.

So, first things first.
I am going to start finding things funny again.
Really funny.
Us, I will find the humor in us and our situation and our kids.
God, I am going to laugh hard with my kids.
More laugh lines, not worry lines.
More silly.
So, I am going to lighten the hell up...way more!

I am going to kick my own ass, way more!
Yep, I am always afraid.
Yep, my first response is always "I can't do that".
Yep, I have to walk through my fear and I always do.
So, more me.
More time spent working to get out of my head.
More time spent on putting my own mask on first.
More time spent doing yoga
and running
and racing
and watching movies
and reading
and building my business
and building me.
More me.

More talking.
More spending time listening to your day.
More walking away from my work to show you that you matter.
More turning everything else off to be with you.
More hands free mom.
More curling up with you and just letting you go.
More time in the car together where you really open up.
More listening.
More of me with you.

More calm presence.
More loving words
more open arms
more smiles
more warmth
more letting you know I have your back
more being on your side
more snuggles
more laying with you at night
more caressing your face
more running my fingers through your hair.
More love towards those I love.

More smiling.
More finding other people as good.
More smiles with strangers.
More complimenting people just because it's true.
More giving of myself to those I don't even know in the most simple and humane way.

More happy.
More finding fun new things to do.
More snowshoeing.
More ice skating.
More playing hoops together.
More board games
more card games
more puzzles
more legos
more family adventure
more hikes
more trips.
More joy in our lives.

I am ready for the challenges that will come.
I am ready for a new puppy to show us that life always moves and goes on.
I am ready for this family, the one we created, the one we wanted, the one we have, the one we need to feel lucky to have.
I am ready for us, all of us.
I am ready to fall back in love.
I am ready to be comfortable.
I am ready to be full on me, us.
Just more of it.

Every Friday we unite for five minutes to write on one word. Only five minutes, that's all we get, that's all we have. And then, right where we are, no edits or second-thoughts, we publish those words. This week, we write on connect.
Go.

People need people, and real connections.

We build bigger homes,
move to places where we have space,
and stop connecting with our neighbors.

We bring children to parks
and sit alone worried about who is looking, judging, not wanting to talk.

We are always on our phones,
pretending to connect, but really alone.

We work out,
alone.

We sit on computers, pretending that we are reaching out, but never really connecting.
And we lie to ourselves and say we are too busy
for people.

Because it is so much easier to judge and write hate then it is to look someone in the eye and say what we are confident in saying across a screen.

We have all lost our connection
to our communities, to each other, and even to those we love, our families.

And, for those that feel we need to all take better care of each other,
our message needs to be louder.
We need to reach across the table and say to a fellow parent,
I have been there too, I understand and you can talk to me, without judgments.
We need to tell our co-workers,
what can I do to help you?
We need to invite our neighbors over for coffee, find out what we can do to help each other out more, call on each other more.
We need to connect.

Because once you have someone in front of you, hatred and hateful words are more difficult.
Because once you are in the presence of people, it's harder to feel alone and isolated.
Because once we all start speaking our truth, it's harder to judge anyone else.
As people, we are all in this together.
We are all trying to figure out a way to survive and make this life worth living for all.
And the only way to stop hate is to connect on a loving level.

So many of my friends have reached across the divide and are starting to open their homes, their lives to connection.
So many of my friends are realizing that too many of us feel isolated and alone, even when in large groups.
So many of my friends are realizing that many are faking their busy so not to show how alone they really are.
And so they have made an effort to say enough, my home, my friendship and I am open to you.

People need people and true connections.

Stop.