Naming What’s Here

02

Motherhood and modern life can pull us in a thousand different directions, sometimes all at once. When I’m feeling scattered (as I have been this week), the simplest way back to my agency—and back to feeling whole—is by naming what I’m feeling in my body.

Today, I’m feeling grief.

Grief for the simple moments with the kids that now live in the rearview mirror. Root beer floats by the pool. Friday night movies—when everyone wanted to watch the same thing. Baby-and-me yoga, their bodies snuggled against my chest in a soft wrap. I miss the days when I could meet most of their needs almost instantly. When I knew exactly what they needed.

Things are different now. There are college applications and job interviews. Bouts of sickness with three hundred miles between us. Relationship dynamics I can’t fix or smooth over. Their lives have grown wider. Their needs have grown, too.

And still, what they need from me is the same: love, presence, and a place to remember they are whole, deeply loved, and endlessly worthy.

Alongside the grief, I’m feeling gratitude—for the simple act of feeling at all. For the ability to name what’s rising in me, to hold it without rushing past it, to honor it, let the tears fall, and keep moving with it. Today, this feels like power. Like being at home in my body.