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M is for Mother

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Motherhood is more than carrying a child in your womb for 9 months. Motherhood is more than daily wiping of noses, cleaning of faces, filling of bellies. Motherhood is more than driving, shopping, cleaning, cooking. Motherhood is part of being a Woman, but not all of it. It is part of growing up, for some of us. It is conducive to gaining appreciation, but not for everyone. I was still a child myself, really, when I became a Mother. Joshua and I did a lot of growing up together. We both learned a lot about sacrifice. I learned how to say good-bye to him in the morning, he learned that separation from Mother wasn't such a bad thing after all. Especially since he got to go to Grandma's house (which, sorry Disney, was the happiest place on earth). I learned I could love someone until my heart might burst and be completely enraged at the same time. He learned that the wrinkling of my forehead was not a good sign for anyone. We learned a lot about time, more specifically abo...
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These are the days of

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I'm hoping these are the days of I still can be It's not too late It isn't over until it's over. Because I still want to. My life is so consumed right now with other things.  Important things, but other.  Other overwhelming things that taste like fear and feel like failure. They scare me. Maybe I'm just not being deliberate enough.  I've been using that word at work a lot.  But I seem to leave it in the doorway and never bring it home. The cliche is that I'm standing at a crossroads. It's much more accurate to say that I am standing in the center of a compass and the needle is spinning.  It's probably true that the direction won't matter, the way it's pointing won't matter.  It will only matter that it IS pointing and I am following that path. That scares me too.  I am a person who likes direction.  I want to see the outcome and figure out my way to it.  Right now, I can't see anything. I suppose, though, that ...
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On Becoming

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When my daughter was born, a new person was born inside of me.  One that thought a lot more about what it meant to be other, outside, and different.  I had lived my whole life inside the comfortable confines of being a middle class white person.  Sure, my parents struggled and lived on the fringes of consumerism.  We had enough, but only just.  My dad worked hard, my mom worked hard, and we got by with enough.  I never spent a whole lot of time considering what not enough looks like.  I had what I needed, I never went hungry, and my parents provided toys and movies and other entertainments that are the hallmark of what we might consider American life. But, when my daughter came to us with a complicated background, this new person inside me started to wonder.  Why were circumstances for others so different from my own?  How would her life be different with another family? What if her birth mother had decided a different path?   These...
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