this is the age

If you've been here for a while you know this March has been busy.   Its been a little difficult to keep up, but here we are, making it to the 31st like champions.  Even when there were days, yet again, there weren't enough hours to get it all done and panic certainly set in many times.  Several birthday celebrations, professional promotions, and personal and professional goals.  Its been a catapult into things that will come.  Its just been a whirlwind of excitement, always some chaos, and too many highs to have time for being low.  

Warmer weather and sunshine is finally here, so we are really on a slide of positive momentum.  

To ease our way into April, which will be a month of preparation, planning, and regrouping we're going to keep this chapter on the succinct side.  

In February you may have seen a sweet concept of "coffee with myself" floating around.  I didn't get a chance to post mine because I was still in post conference travel mode.  But I wrote it!  

And if you didn't do your own post, or even less didn't even think of what you would say to yourself if you were going to write it - I highly recommend it.  

It turned out to be a bit cathartic, and really powerful by way of hindsight showing you your life in flashbulb moments how everything does turn out how it is supposed to and how amazing life is - even in the dull day to day, the magic of how it all unfolds is remarkable.  You really do make it through hard times and come out victorious. 

Its an easy reminder of how beautiful life really is. 

If you could travel back and have coffee with your younger self what would you ask yourself?  How would you answer?

Here's just a snippet of mine:

I met my younger self for coffee 

My younger self was early, for fear of being in trouble for being on time.  Even though being seen alone, not knowing how to occupy the quiet time, and small talk actually terrify her.  I was there just a few minutes late out of a habit I'm always trying to break - taking care of things before I leave the house, I'm sure there is some self sabotage still lingering there, maybe more than I'd like to admit.  

She smiled when she saw me, jumped up and said hello.  Embraced me in the biggest hug with a squeal of cheerful glee.  I told her she could relax, she didn't have to act around me.  To save her energy, even without it I knew she was excited to see me.  

She asked me how I was doing, and what is new.  I let her know I was doing okay and everything is different, and always just the same.  She is pursuing something big that won't really ever come to fruition, but in so many ways how it turns out is so much better, because our soul couldn't possibly handle what she was preparing it for.  But she has to go through it all to get to where I am now.  And that is how it goes, hindsight is actually 20/20.

She asks if we find our prince and how all those babies are?  I let her know that our partner is perfect for us in just about every way, even when I don't want him to be, and our one baby is the absolute most perfect human to complete our little family.  

She asked me if there was anything to be prepared for, and I let her know there is a lot.  Lay down your guard, set aside your expectations, come to grips with failure and feelings other than happiness.  We get to heal a lot over the coming years, and some days it feels like a battle, but we get to be pioneers in undoing a lot of damage, to truly be better for your our daughter and the coming generations - and that it feels like a heavy burden but the greatest privilege and what a gift.  There will be grieving, a lot of grieving, but there will also be solace in safety and deep breathing - something we've never really felt before.  And the gratitude, so much gratitude.  

We probably don't ever change the world like we planned, we just end up normal people, maybe in another lifetime we'll be bigger than ourselves, but in this one... we still have a lot of learning left to do.  And that is beautiful.

You could potentially continue writing that back and forth conversation for hours.  If you think of yourself sitting with a friend in a similar talk it isn't much different.  I think we have to view all the versions of ourselves as friends, don't we?  Which leads to understanding, compassion, and forgiveness at every fork in the road, every pit stop along the way.  It is such a beautiful exercise.  And if you're ever stuck in your journaling practice - it could really be useful to get the juices flowing.

I remember being pregnant with my daughter and telling everyone we cannot share the same birthday.  It absolutely cannot happen.  As the deadline was approaching, I look back now and see that the doctors would have never let me go that long, but it wouldn't have mattered.  Being a mother is so much more than sharing a birthday.  From the moment I birthed her, I would have given her my birthday, I would have given her my left arm, and every organ in my body and my very last breath if she ever needed it.  

Since having her, I've seen the bigger picture.  How can you not?  I can't believe I get to raise this amazing human that somehow I created.  

I've tried to remember every moment, and be present, and keep it all full of joy to make raising her intentional.  And yet - memories fade, and there are other emotions beyond joy, and in the end we are all human.  

But I didn't see this year coming.  I didn't know this was the age when a shift would happen.  Between being my baby still and becoming her own.  She's always been her own, we've never molded or shaped her, but I just can't believe that this was the year when it became clear - we raise them to leave us.  

A few weeks before her birthday she really did start to retreat a little.  She started running into school without always saying goodbye, she started standing her ground a little bit more, digging in her heals, she has started to show how she feels about some of the decisions we've made instead of just accepting it.  

She's started to sink into her independence a bit harder, need a bit more space, express herself in bigger ways - she feels things a bit deeper these days too.  

But she's still here, she's still my little baby.  She still snuggles with me hard right before falling asleep, and loves when I read to her.  She still needs me when she is hurt or when she needs comforting.  She still runs to both of us in the morning with the best smiles and biggest hugs, still excited about the new day.  

I think this is how it supposed to go.  We are supposed to be giving her the tools to move ahead, move on, keep going.  We want her to feel safe in this space to be who she needs to be, practice feeling and emoting, so when she moves on even further she'll have the confidence to go with intention.  

Its all bittersweet.  We start out as not parents, and overnight become parents and that is terrifying but also very intuitional?  Once those little ones start to need us less and less, we have to find ourselves more and more.  But who is that?  Its not who we were before... because we didn't have this life changing force with us before.  

We go from leading to standing next to and then following.  And I think I'm in that stage right now, standing next to her, here at the ready but not always needed 

They tried to tell me, how children change you, but out of context it doesn't feel that big.  Becoming a parent - of course now I get it.  And I'll try to tell her, but it won't click until she's standing on this side.  One day I'll tell her, "it'll be momentous the season your daughter's first tooth falls out - when everything feels like a movie montage and a mental inception all at once, I think that's when it'll really come to you. That's when you'll really understand."

I just didn't know this was the age for me that it would all start to make sense, and this was the age for her that she would start trying to make sense of it all.  

I didn't know this was the age that I would become a better version of me and she would become the next version of her.

And how grateful I am that she came to me.  How grateful I am to be a mom to this human that moves mountains every day - like its nothing.  

And the lessons she continues to teach me - well, its a beautiful thing. 

In some ways, to come full circle, its like I'm actually living with a younger version of myself -  not just having coffee with her - even though she is uniquely her own, I still can't wait to show her all the beautiful ways life changes and how if you're ready for the ride, and not trying to control the outcome, it will forever be the most joyous part of life.

If you’re just joining me, A Journey of Beautiful Things is a monthly series that I write to bring to light the most precious moments I’ve witnessed, felt, or created – amidst all the chaotic noise I live through daily.  It’s a chance for you to get to know me a little better.  The person behind the camera is actually a person beyond the camera.  The person you’re letting into your life to capture your most precious moments.  This is a chance for us to connect and to relate with one another.  I’m a Woman, a Wife, a Mom – not necessarily always in that order – just trying my very hardest to leave some good behind when I go and I know you are too.   

If you need to catch up here are the first chapters released:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Feel free to hit reply, or post a comment here, of how any of this can relate to you.  Let me know the season (beautiful or not) you're currently in and the recent moments you've lived where you have sought out or felt joy or beauty in some way.  Remember, constantly finding the beauty will make it second nature, and the beautiful moments will start finding you, and then find gratitude that you'll get to see them.

Until the next chapter, enjoy the journey...