emberrisen

Tag: family

  • The More I’m Becoming

    The More I’m Becoming

    For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mom. It wasn’t a passing wish or a soft hope — it was the one thing I knew to be true about myself. I spent years feeling like I had to justify that desire, explain it, defend it, prove it. Maybe a trained professional could trace that longing back to pieces of my childhood, but whatever its origin, it lived in me with certainty.

    And when I finally became a mom to my daughter, the gratitude was so immense it felt like it lived in my bones. Some days it still rises up so strongly it brings me to tears. Loving her is one of the clearest, fiercest things in my life.

    But lately, something quieter has been happening underneath that love — a realization I didn’t expect.

    In the years I spent fighting to become a mom, I fought so hard for that one identity that I lost sight of the others. I poured everything into proving I was meant for motherhood, and somewhere along the way, I stopped noticing the parts of myself that wanted more, too.

    Now those parts are resurfacing. Now I’m remembering dreams I set aside. Now I’m wanting things I didn’t give myself permission to want before.

    And with that wanting comes a complicated sadness. A fear that maybe it means I cherish being a mom less than I used to, or less than I thought I would, or less than I’m supposed to. A fear that acknowledging my longing for more somehow betrays my daughter.

    I never want her to think I wanted anything more than being her mom. I never want her to feel like she wasn’t enough. I never want her to carry the weight of my becoming.

    But I also know — even if I’m still learning to believe it — that motherhood was never meant to be the whole of me. It was meant to be one of the truest parts, not the only one.

    There has to be room for both. Room to love her with a heart that feels like it could burst. And room to grow into the woman I’m still becoming.

    I struggle with the gray of that. With the unknown. With the quiet moments when longing shows up and asks me to look at the life I didn’t choose. But I’m trying to trust that wanting more doesn’t mean I love her less. It means I’m human. It means I’m expanding. It means I’m learning to hold both devotion and desire in the same hands.

    Maybe one day I’ll figure out how all the pieces fit. Until then, I pray I can be the best mom I can be — not by shrinking myself, but by showing her what a whole, well‑rounded woman looks like. A woman who never makes herself less so someone else can feel whole.

    A woman who teaches her daughter, simply by living, that love doesn’t require disappearing.

    If any part of this met you where you are, I share more reflections by email.

    Subscribe
  • Missing Him: Twenty-Two Years Later

    Missing Him: Twenty-Two Years Later

    Twenty‑two years ago today, my dad died. Even now, I can still feel the shock of that night in my bones — the phone call from the hospital, the full‑body sobs as I drove to pick up my sister, the way grief swallowed every inch of air around me. I could write out every moment from that night; it lives in me as vividly as if it happened yesterday.

    The pain of losing him has softened over the years, but on days like today, it rises closer to the surface. Grief has a way of reminding you that love doesn’t disappear — it just changes shape.

    My dad was not a perfect man. He made mistakes long before I came along, mistakes that hurt the children who came before me in ways I’ll never fully understand. But for reasons I’ll never quite be able to explain, he got it mostly right with me. He was quiet, stoic, a man who answered questions but rarely volunteered anything. And yet — he showed up. Every softball game, every volleyball match, every cheerleading event. He was there.

    I’d say we were close, though I’m not sure how close you can truly be to someone who keeps their inner world locked away. Then again, maybe that’s just how parents are — loving us fiercely while holding their own stories quietly.

    In the later years of his life, I saw him trying. Trying to show up for the larger family. Trying to be better. Trying to make amends he never quite knew how to make. Through my parents’ divorce, he became one of those “underdog” souls I instinctively want to protect — the broken ones I want to make sure feel loved. I’ll never know how much that shaped the way I saw him.

    But I do know this: losing him was crushing. And even now, I still think of him as my hero. Not because he was flawless or full of wisdom or the kind of dad who always knew what to say. He was my hero because he never stopped trying. He was flawed, but he did his best to make me feel like I mattered, like I had a home, like I was loved.

    For that, I am endlessly grateful.

    I love you, Dad. Missing you today and every day.

    If any part of this met you where you are, I share more reflections by email.

    Subscribe
  • When Old Wounds Echo Through New Moments

    When Old Wounds Echo Through New Moments

    This week, something small and seemingly unrelated cracked open a place in me I didn’t expect. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even about me. But it stirred up emotions I’ve carried for a long time — the kind that sit quietly until life brushes against them just right.

    My mom is preparing to move to a new state, and her new HOA only allows one pet. She has three. Two of them are registered emotional support animals, which technically means she could make the case to keep all of them. I don’t know what thoughts she wrestled with or how heavy the decision felt for her. All I saw was the simple, swift act of rehoming two animals she has loved for years — one for almost a decade.

    And it stopped me in my tracks.

    My heart didn’t break for her, though I’m sure she had her own heartbreak to carry. My heart broke for the animals — for the sudden shift in their world, for the loss of the security they trusted, for the feeling of being left. They were being sent somewhere partially familiar, but not home. Not the place where they had been loved.

    The intensity of my reaction surprised me. It was deeper than empathy. It was personal.

    If I’m honest, it’s because I’ve felt that kind of abandonment before. More than once. During my parents’ divorce, when my mom seemed to choose a new man over me. And again at the end of my freshman year of high school, when she chose to move to Florida and I stayed behind. Those are stories with layers I’ll unpack in other posts, but the truth is simple: those moments shaped me.

    They made me someone who fights for the underdog. Someone who cannot bear the thought of anyone — person or animal — feeling unwanted, unseen, or unloved. Someone who steps in, even when it costs me.

    And that part of me, the part that aches at the idea of abandonment, is also the part that led me into an abusive marriage. I kept believing that if I could just love him enough, make him feel wanted enough, prove he wasn’t alone, everything would finally be okay. I didn’t realize I was reenacting an old wound — trying to save someone so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of being left again.

    This week reminded me that the things we carry from childhood don’t disappear. They echo. They surface in unexpected places. They shape the way we love, the way we protect, the way we choose.

    And sometimes, they show us exactly where we still need healing.

    If any part of this met you where you are, I share more reflections by email.

    Subscribe