Not perfect, but perfectly complete.

Here we be, a newly minted family of five. You could put us in a magazine, although the thought of that makes me extremely uncomfortable. But then again, I wasn’t exactly given a road map for this ‘happy family’ thing. Quite the opposite actually. When it came time to create a family of my own, I chose to do everything differently than my own parents and theirs before them. I did what they couldn’t - the healing, the reparenting, the leaning instead of shutting down. I broke the cycle. I got what I wanted growing ups It‘s almost as if I made my own dreams come true.

All that aside, it’s still difficult for me to trust that I know what I’m doing. I always search for what’s missing. And then I get angry that I’m squandering the chance to be happy by only focusing on what I lack. A vicious cycle. It’s been said that we don’t live a life, we live a pattern. Whatever mine may be, they’re always insisting the other shoe is about to drop. It’s hard for me not to look for problems where there are none, so committing to change always seems scary. I can’t even bring myself to change my hair, let alone my family dynamic.

Will it be too much for us? Am I even going to be good at it? Will the kids resent me later?

This year I took a leap of faith and forced myself to trust the universe a little bit more. And wouldn’t you know it, we ended up here, a baby girl in our arms. The most significant change for us all.

So what happens now? Well I’m 6 weeks postpartum, and I feel like I’m finally able to rest and embrace a soft, slow, comfortable life. I’ll exercise less judgment on myself this time around. As I lean into this experience of matrescence, I can focus on play, creativity, and wellness and whatever is happening in the now. The present moment invites me to it and accept with pleasure. I can nurture my babies and my marriage and my art and not have to reach for external pinnacles of success. I can feed my mind and focus on my growth. I’m grateful I’m in the position to be able to do all this. Eventually I won’t have the luxury, but right now I welcome it.

There’s so much to see and do in this life, and I likely won’t get to everything. But I’d rather see and do as much as I can with my little family by my side. We aren’t perfect, but we are perfectly complete.