From Her Fingertips

My daughter is twelve and technically not a teenager, but I don’t think being a teenager really starts the day they turn thirteen. I knew being a mother to a teenager would be hard, this is common knowledge. But she’s only just barely a teenager and it’s already so freakin’ hard! My daughter is a very loving, smart and beautiful human. She is creative and inventive in ways I didn’t expect. But she’s also quite sneaky and I’m catching her in more and more lies. I struggle with knowing which battles to choose. I was prepared to care for young kids. I spent time thinking about what kind of mother I wanted to be. Just hadn’t spent time thinking about how to be a mom to a teenager in a world that is so different from when I was a teenager... Where do I draw the line? Which punishment is most effective? How do I make sure the rules are followed and at the same time make her feel she can trust me with anything? The more I think about this the more confused I become. But it’s too late to o...

Some experiences we go through in life can feel unfair, painful and senseless when we are in the midst of them, but looking back when time has past they usually start making sense in life. My second son’s birth is such a thing. I went through my second pregnancy alone, his father moved to Sweden only three weeks prior to his birth. In my mind I imagined that dream vaginal birth I had seen in too many birthing videos; calm, held and supported by my partner, the baby being placed on my chest right away, etc. But my first son’s birth was nothing like that. My water broke and it was nothing like a Hollywood movie; no contractions, no birth. We waited and waited. Finally I spiked a fever and my doula urged me to go to the hospital. After a few hours in the hospital they decided a c-section was the best option. This was an option I hadn’t even considered. My daughter, my first born, was born vaginally so I assumed my second would too. I was extremely emotional before and during the c-sec...

When women go from being “not mothers” to “mothers” there’s a lot of conversations (and articles and blog posts, etc) about loosing oneself. The woman gets lost when she becomes a mother. A new mom to her second child said this to me recently and I felt kind of annoyed by this. It’s like we are not allowed to change. We live in a society where we should never grow old, get tired, slow down or any other thing that comes with life changes. Because that’s the word that somehow we have been taught to fear; change. Though it’s inevitable and constant through life we are supposed to not want it. Some people speak of being scared of change like it’s a good thing. But life is change, are you scared of life? I don’t think a woman looses herself when she becomes a mother, she just changes. It’s evolution. If a woman doesn’t change when something so big as becoming a mom happens shouldn’t that be a concern? Motherhood changes everything, as it should. You are now fully responsible for another p...

It's when pain comes that writing starts. Or is it when I slow down. When I say I cannot anymore. I listen within. I stop hiding. Stop denying. It's when life is hard that I need this more. More than food, more than sleep, more than friendships and company. It's the place I return to. It's the place I have always returned so. It's the one place that will wait for me. The one place that will understand. My sacred place.  Welcome back. 

From Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche's article on depression. 

"I love being a woman. I love playing a woman, I love being a whole and full woman. I am more than my parts, and we all are. And we all as women need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing. We are full and beautiful women and let us live in that."