Mothering

I've written

For as long as I can remember

I wrote

And I wrote

And I wrote

That's always how I found my connection

In my twenties I lost it

I became dependent

I tried hard to fit in

To the life I had chosen

I lost myself

But the thing is

I don't think I ever had myself

I can't think of a time when I felt secure inside my body

When I felt ok

At all

I'm finding it now

In my mid-thirties

When I tried all the things everyone else wanted me to to try

And still

I couldn't find my wholeness

But I found it in my daughter

I found myself in my daughter

And it changed

Everything

It changed how I looked at the world

How I looked at my life

How I valued

Everything

Especially everyone else's opinions

My daughter is the one that saved me

Because for her

I'd discard everything 

To protect her

To nurture her

To be the mom I always knew was in me

I just knew

And once I had her I learned

The role of the mother will never be validated

You will never win

You will never be accepted

You will never be loved or validated or nurtured the way you deserve to be

When I became a mother

My role in society shed new light on everything

Thank god I was already an outcast

Thank god for my rebellious nature

Thank god for me

Because that's the only thing I had to rely on

Me, myself, and my growing intuition

My life

My choices

Have never made sense to anyone

But when I look at my daughter, I know

Everything I do is for her

I don't mother the way anyone else thinks I should mother

I mother

The way I know I should mother

Because it's in me

It's the core of my being

Society is going to judge you anyway

When you trust yourself

External validation stops mattering

There is no mother that does it exactly the same way

We're not supposed to

We're not supposed to be the same

We're supposed to be ourselves

And love our children