love + relationships

Hello, warm heart ♥

I'm sure glad you are here ♥

I made a really big choice a few days ago, and I just could use a lot of hugs now.

I finally allowed my oldest daughter to be free. I didn't even realize how unfree I had made her, how seriously miserable she was, how resistant I was, how tightly I was holding her.

Until she was gone and I had a day to really reflect.

She didn't want to do this. She didn't want to move into an RV or the van. She didn't want to travel. I just kept thinking that she would come around. There were moments she was onboard. I mistook all the love and laughter we shared as her not being as miserable as so many people noticed.

I blamed others for her crankiness and resistance.

But reality has a way of butting against my false barriers, of finally being heard that there was a reason so much felt out of alignment, that allowing truth would allow the powerful flow of love and healing and rightness.

I started to think about how happy she was when she was visiting my mom on a ranch with goats and other animals.

She has always had a sacred bond with my mom.

She has always had a sacred connection to animals and a draw to living with them.

I wanted this for us, too. Just not yet.

But she needed it now.

Coupled with the resentment she had for me, this was the most incredible choice we could possibly make for her. For all of us.

Bit by bit, I am realizing how much I have to let go of.

It is terrifying and liberating, and I am also learning to let go of feeling guilty for feeling such incredible perfectness at our new life arrangement.

I feel incredible love for my daughter, but I wasn't being love with her.

Now I am.

Now, I have a big giant space in my life to learn how to truly love my daughter, to look at my past and see my failures and my successes, with distance and clarity.

Now my daughter has the opportunity to be and attract what she wants to bring into her life and her being in a way I couldn't give her.

This is her opportUNITY to become whole. This is her incredible opportunity to swing the pendulum of life experiences in the other direction, so she can find the balance that works for her.

How incredible that she is doing this at 14. I was an adult when I decided to try to be more "normal" (after having been raised by a total hippy mama). She is being drawn strongly toward new experiences at 14!!!

I am ticking her maturity off as a success on my part of parenting ♥

I have been successful at helping her stay intact - or grow - a sense of self-knowing, a confidence in pursing her interests with her whole heart, of taking the steering wheel of her life and making shit happen, of knowing when something is off in her life.

At first, I felt like her going to live with my mom meant I had failed as a mom.

I went into my usual line of defense, even to myself, about how it wasn't really failure because I have always done my best.

Thankfully, my bullshit/now-be-real barometer went off, and I knew there were some failure bits to dig into and process.

Yes, I failed. I am sure her list of ways I failed is far longer than mine. Mine basically entails however I didn't meet her needs, however I wasn't connected to her enough to make this not a reality.

And then I had a mamaste moment - I am human!!!!!!!!!! I yelled it to the universe from my heart.

Yes, I failed, I am human!!!!!!!!

And the perfectionist in me smiled warmly as she died a little more, knowing she is less and less needed.

I am a mom who failed, and I am making it right by this new big choice.

Setting my first baby free does not mean we don't have each other anymore. It means I am allowing her the space to direct her life, and if I can learn to allow her, to just be with her during her journey, there will be as much room for me in her life as we can enjoy.

Who knows what the future may bring.

I wrote this e-mail to her yesterday, and after I sent it, I realized that it was as much for me as it was for her. And that it has so so so many opportunities to learn about love and relationships in every area of my life.

I love you. Truly love you. The everlasting kind. The kind that rides the roller coaster.

I trust you. To do what you know is right for you, and what is right for your part of our relationship and family.

I hope you will be shamelessly real, with your feelings, with your interests, with your needs. I look forward to what all that ends uspbeing. So far, for me, it means, I want you to be selfish. I want you to take care of you. Don't try to take care of my feelings, be honest. And let me know what you are needing from me, because I am here to honor your needs ♥

Be kind to yourself about your learning. Love you the way (and more than the way) that you would want someone who loves you to treat you ♥ In school stuff, in learning new fun things, and learning life stuff.

And I know this is best for us. It is why I said yes to it. I knew it was right, and I am excited to find all the ways that it is right. All the ways for each of us. It is right until it isn't right anymore, and we will each know when that is :)

I love you. Let's do this :)

One of the toughest relationships I have had in my life has been with my mom. I know this is common, across the globe.

Our relationship has been up and down and all around - not a roller coaster I would have chosen to ride on. But so worth it.

I have learned so much about relationships through being love (and failing at being love) with my mom.

And now I get to practice love with my child in way that echoes adult relationships.

I am here to learn how to be love.

I am so grateful for this opportunity.

I am wide open and flowing. This is going to be an incredible experience. For all of us.

While my daughter BEs in her rightness and grows in ways she has longed for, me and the babies get to do the same.

That is the most exciting sentence in my life!!!

Everyone happy? Magic.

Travel? Oh yes.

But not just travel. Travel without my co-captain riding the brakes!

Do you realize how freeing that feels to me right now?

Boundless opportunities for experiences.

Deep connection with new and heart-beloved people, because that is what the babies and I are all about :))

More room to go with the flow.

This Pisces mama can now flow like water, while my heavily earthy Taurus oldest can grow roots in the haven of my own mom's cuddles and ranchy home and predictable life.

Win-win!

Do you see the rightness? Did you feel the energy shift that happened when I started talking about it's rightness for all of us?

It can still be heavy in my heart at times. I am carving out a new groove with a tool that reminds me I deserve to be happy and that my whole family being happy doesn't have to look like anyone else's perception of how it "should" be.

I am still chatting across the coffee table with my old friend failure - we come up with the most incredible jewels now that we can work together as friends, rather than me barring to door in fear and assuming we are enemies.

Failure sure is good at giving hugs. In fact, failure is pretty darn good at knowing exactly what I need to jump back up and keep on keeping on :)

This is going to be a journey. It is a deep journey, and how long it will take until her and I really come back together could take weeks, or it could take a year. Who knows.

But I am sure glad for all the ways I have done things right, and continue to do. (Right meaning in alignment) It makes for a good platform for healing...

I guess I am off to explore the incredibleness in store for me + the babies now...