Um, so the two questions that I responded to were, in what ways do you still feel like a mother and do you mother, um, as I keep learning about the ways in which I did so much caretaking throughout my life, I’m realizing the biggest way I’m mothering now is by being the mother to myself that I never had.
And, , that feels so good. It feels so good. And I think there’s obviously, you know, I, I’ve gotten to a place where I’ve. Grieved am grieving, like, do you ever arrive? Do you ever, like, are you ever healed? It’s life work, I think to do this kind of , grief work around realizing that I didn’t have what I feel like I should have had and wanted.
And I’m 35 and I am. Realizing that even at this age I’m creating like a foundation for something that I’ve never had. And that feels both like exciting and like there’s a lot of freedom in that and it’s like providing myself with this missing experience. Um, and I think that that’s beginning to inform like how I show up in the world and,
so much of my identity, I think was around caretaking. Caretaking, like mostly my family, my brother, my parents, and not giving back to myself. And I actually think that perhaps that’s why I’ve had a lot of health issues is because it’s been giving and overgiving to everyone else. And now. As I am navigating this, I’m, I obviously care for my people, but it’s like not caretaking, if that makes sense.
There’s, that’s such a different thing and I think so much of my identity was wrapped up in this piece of myself that I was giving away and now I’m calling it back. And I think that, there’s, um. Again, it like, there’s grief in that too. ’cause it’s like, damn, I, I don’t feel old at 35, but I’m like, I’ve been giving so much of that away for so long and,
So there’s grief in that as well. And, um, the other one I responded to was, have you always known that you didn’t wanna have children? Or did that evolve over time? And I think for me, being a mom was something I was told I would be good at. And, um, I do love kids and I, I think that that’s something I always felt that I.
Like I would be good at. And, it’s like realizing that just because you would be good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it, I think has been, a revelation for me.
So I was diagnosed with endometriosis in 2018 and through that journey, I’ve been in a partnership, with this person who’s been on this journey with me. And, we’ve gone on this rollercoaster of, you know, like being told, , if you don’t do this in the next year or so, like you’re not gonna be able to have kids.
And then it was like, well if you have this surgery, you can try to have kids or do that or X, Y, Z and with all of that, my desire to have children has changed, which is very interesting to think about. It’s almost like, of course there was this period of grief with it, and I think that, like with the diagnosis came this sense of like peace and realizing that maybe.
That it isn’t for me, but I , I’m getting ready to have my third surgery for endometriosis, and I went in to have a conversation with my gynecologist about having a hysterectomy. And I, sat down and I was in the room and I was like, just started bawling.
And it just overcame me in this way that I was not expecting, and she said something to me that really resonated. She’s like, when women come in here and they know that they. They know, like they know they wanna do it unless they, obviously there’s reasons that you have to, you know, but the elective piece for me was like, I always thought that I’d be okay with that, with having ino and that is something that’s proven to help women with it.
And so. Being in there and being told, like, you usually know when you wanna do it. I was like, okay, that’s enough for me to know that I’m not there yet. And that just because I can’t reproduce doesn’t mean like, you can still have a uterus and not reproduce with it and that it’s okay to to keep that.