Good Luck: What Motherhood Taught Me About Wanting More

Almost 16 years ago I became "Mom" for the first time. Actually, I became "Mommy" which has since been shortened to "Mom" and more recently, inexplicably to "Unc."

In becoming a mother, I learned a completely different set of things nobody actually prepared me for. That my capacity for love is seemingly limitless. That berries, specifically raspberries during toddlerhood, will bring you to your knees financially, emotionally, and spiritually. That unhealed wounds from your own childhood will surface while you're trying to keep another human alive. That the human body is simultaneously the most resilient and most fragile machine you will ever own and experience. That traditions are funny things: some you hold on to joyfully, and some you need to break. That you will understand your own parent/s in ways you never anticipated. Oh, and the emergency "last chance" emails about purchasing school pictures are completely unfounded — I'm still getting opportunities to purchase photos from 2019. Nice try, Lifetouch. I'm on to you.

Motherhood's instruction manual can largely be summarized in two words: good luck.

What I want for my kids is both simple and expansive: to live fully, to experience the absolute wonder that is the world, to do no harm and leave people and places better than they found them, to be changed by life for the better, and most of all, to be themselves completely, outside of limited expectation.

And that's what I want for you too. (There's that limitless love thing again 😊)

What I Want For You

I see this desire every day in the women I work with. They are absolute forces of nature with their own gravitational pulls. They have the capacity to hold, build, nurture, organize, anticipate, love, and show up in a way that feels genuinely superhuman and is often just so expected. Entire ecosystems kept alive and thriving with a calendar, a Notes app list, and a group text.

These women don't lack ambition or intelligence or discipline. They are exhausted from carrying lives built entirely around everyone else's priorities. Where their needs only matter once everyone else's are handled, and their dreams are permanently scheduled for "later."

And babe, "later" is not an actual time that's going to come. You have to decide it's now.

The Most Radical Question You Can Ask Yourself

The world doesn't need you smaller. It needs you fully expressed, chasing the dream, asking the question out loud, pouring into yourself the way you pour into everyone else. Without guilt. Without waiting.

So finish your mimosa, take a nap, and if you're open to it, ask yourself:

What did the women before you teach you about worth? What beliefs are you ready to lovingly retire? What do you want?

Not what makes sense, not what keeps everyone comfortable, not what is expected, but what actually feels alive to you.