When I was nineteen I had the amazing and most beautiful experience, I became a mother.  I had no way of knowing how this fact would forever change me.  I did not know the capacity my heart held to love, give, fear, worry, or feel.  I did not know that I would spend every moment of my years learning, failing, forgiving, hoping, believing and loving. I also choose to expand my hearts capacity to love four more times. Making me the mother of four of the worlds most amazing young men and one beautiful young lady.

There is nothing in this world that can prepare you for motherhood.  No one can explain to you what it will be like. Mothering is an experience and one that you will only know once you have had first hand encounters with a sleep deprived, gassy newborn, teething infant, a six month old with chicken pox, two spaghetti-o throwing up children. Smiles, laughter, howls, tears and tantrums.  A toddler who removes a diaper and smears you a mess to clean or a four year old who paints you a spaceship.  A sons first soccer game, a daughters first goodbye to a best friend.  These are so many of the encounters motherhood will give you to experience.  They are the experiences that mold us, grow us, change us, and define us.  Without her children a mother loses her identity.  They easily become the topic of any conversation. They are on her mind during the day and while she sleeps.  Her children are her everything they are why she does what she does and is who she is.

If we met in school then I am probably not the same person you knew then, nor am I the same person you may have known if you knew me with only one or two children in my early twenties.  And even if we just met this year I am probably not quite the same person you first met. The reason for this is that with each new day comes new experiences.  I am learning and growing, failing and winning.  I am ever changing to meet the needs of those around me and I am being educated daily on how to be the best mother I can possibly be.  To all you moms out there, keep striving, growing, changing, and failing you are doing an amazing job of the one most important job there is in this world and that is to be the best mother you can possibly be.  Cheers to the mamma’s, young, old, and in between. I commend you all and appreciate the sacrifices you make every day to raise your babies. Motherhood, aint it grand!

Have you ever come to a point where everything you thought you knew was really nothing you knew at all?  For so many years I thought I knew why I believed what I believed or did what I did. I thought I had the right to be indignant, to speak for my beliefs and ways as if they were the only ways that could be.  I was rooted which was is good, but I also thought that if you didn’t agree with me or thought a different way that you were the one who was wrong.  The old adage that “with age comes wisdom” is so very true.  I wish someone could tell our younger indignant, “know it all” selves this. Especially in our teen years and early twenties.  Oh the troubles and tribulations I could have been spared if only I hadn’t been so certain  that I was right about everything.   The truth is I was right about nothing and wrong about most everything.   

Life has a funny way of teaching us along the way.  I have yet to meet a person who has been spared trials and tribulations.  My luggage that I carry containing my life lessons may have more weight than yours it may have a few more sad stories and it may make you stop mid thought, drop your jaw, and leave you in deep awe.  However, my luggage is not any more important or meaningful or life changing than your very own luggage that you are carrying right now. The luggage that may have defined all that you know and are certain of.  But, here is the kicker, you too know nothing, you are not grounded in what you know or think you know.  You could wake up tomorrow and everything you thought you knew and were certain of could be swept out from under you, like the right piece of the Jenga tower pulled and all the blocks come tumbling down.  

I write this to remind you to be true. True to yourself and to others, be kind, be open minded, do not live under the knowledge that religion, politics, schooling, racism, gossip, fear, love, or hate sets in your mind.  There is not one person alive who knows it all, it is impossible. For what you know today may be gone tomorrow. Stop knowing and just live, live for today, for those you love, for peace, for love, for laughter, for fun, live for yourself just do it in a way that will enrich this world.