Tag: mental health

The Becoming : Pride in the midst of chaos

by Mothersense, posted in Uncategorized

Both Things Can Be True

This past week felt like a culmination of so many moments for my niece.

She is my older sister’s only child, and she is truly a gem of a human—kind, smart, hardworking, and quick with a perfectly timed sassy comeback when the moment calls for it. It’s her senior year, and with that comes all the lasts of high school, not just for her, but for her mom too. Anyone who has parented a senior knows those endings hit in unexpected ways.

My niece is a 4-H and FFA gal, a band kid, and a Girl Scout. Through these programs she has learned responsibility, leadership, grit, creativity, and how to show up even when things are hard. I am so incredibly proud of her accomplishments. At her last county show, she earned Reserve Champion with pickled beets (yes—pickled beets!), and her market broilers made the sale. Those are not small wins. They are the result of years of early mornings, late nights, dirty boots, careful planning, and persistence.

Another “last” arrived quietly when I had the chance to talk with my sister about what comes next for her baby—her everything. And make no mistake, this kid has options. Several schools have already accepted her, and some came with scholarship packages. That is huge. That is exciting. That is the payoff for all those years of busyness and commitment.

It sent me straight back in time to my own years as a mom with kids who showed. The careful choosing of recipes. The guarding of certain ones like state secrets (banana butter, I’m looking at you). The pride of watching your kids take ownership of their work. Even my two older daughters—without any guidance from me—entered items and won prizes. There is something deeply satisfying about watching your children surprise you with who they are becoming.

All of that nostalgia, love, and pride has been swirling around me this week… while my own life looks a bit like a shit show.

Our water heater quit and is limping along on a temporary fix after days without hot water. I’m dealing with a kidney infection and a pharmacy run that couldn’t come soon enough. Our car is broken down and has a flat tire. My husband had a job lined up, attended orientation, only to be told days later that the position had already been filled. And just to round things out, I sliced my fingers open trying to pry a tin can (yes, I absolutely should know better), which earned me an ER visit, a tetanus shot, glued fingers, a wrapped thumb, and the loss of a good portion of my thumb pad. Goodbye thumbprint.

And yet—both things can be true.

I can feel immense love and pride for my niece and her accomplishments while my own world feels messy, loud, painful, and frustrating. I won’t fall into woe is me. This is my life. It is complicated and exhausting and sometimes downright ridiculous. There are days I want to strangle someone (figuratively… mostly). But then there are days when I glance in the rearview mirror and realize how far I’ve come.

I’ve survived every single thing I thought would break me.
That survival rate? 100%.

Am I the same person I once was? Absolutely not. But isn’t that the point? Life is about the becoming. About collecting skills, wisdom, scars, and stories. About learning how to stand back up. About making the world a little better where we can—just like my lovely niece is already doing.

And yes, you’d better believe I can still recite the 4-H pledge, parts of the FFA Creed, and the Girl Scout Promise.

Here’s to the becoming in 2026.
Love and light, y’all 🕯️

2025: Lessons from the Valley of Hope

by Mothersense, posted in Uncategorized

2025: Lessons from the Valley

2025 was one for the books.

It was a year of long pauses and deep reflection, a year where many days were spent in the valley and far fewer on the mountaintop. A year filled with storms—some sudden, some slow-building—and not nearly as many victories as I would have liked. It wasn’t a year that offered easy answers or tidy endings. It was a year that asked me to sit with discomfort, uncertainty, and fear, and to learn what it truly means to endure.

Difficult seasons have a way of stripping life down to its essentials. When the noise fades and the days feel heavy, you learn quickly what matters and what doesn’t. You learn what you can cling to when there is nothing left to hold but hope—sometimes not even hope as we like to define it, but simply the decision to keep going.

There were moments this year when the darkness felt especially close. Moments when the questions came faster than the answers, when the weight of “what if” pressed hard against my chest. And one of those moments came under fluorescent lights, in a hospital room, as I prepared to undergo anesthesia for a heart catheterization.

Lying there, surrounded by beeping machines and hushed voices, my mind did not wander to all the things I still wanted to do or all the plans I hadn’t finished. It went straight to one thing—one moment I desperately wanted to reach.

My daughter’s wedding.

As the anesthesia began to take hold, fear crept in. Not the loud, panicked kind, but the quiet, sobering fear that asks: What if? What if I don’t wake up? What if I don’t get there? What if the moment I’ve been holding onto slips past me?

In that moment, I clung to prayer. I clung to love. I clung to the image of my daughter in a wedding dress, to the sound of laughter and music, to the sacred hope of being present for one of the most important days of her life. When everything else felt uncertain, that was my anchor.

And I made it.

I made it to the wedding.

And it was beautiful.

My daughter was beautiful—radiant in a way that goes far beyond appearances. There is something profoundly moving about watching your child step into a new chapter, about witnessing love take shape in front of you after all the years of raising, protecting, worrying, and praying. Standing there, heart full and eyes wet, I knew with absolute clarity that every storm, every valley, every fearful moment had led me to that sacred joy.

2025 taught me that difficult times don’t always come with immediate redemption. Sometimes the victory isn’t in the overcoming but in the surviving. Sometimes it’s in showing up—still breathing, still loving, still willing to hope even when hope feels fragile.

What do we cling to in the darkest moments?

We cling to love.
We cling to faith.
We cling to the people and moments that remind us why staying matters.
We cling to the belief that even in the valley, beauty can still be waiting ahead.

This year wasn’t easy. It wasn’t gentle. But it was meaningful. And if there is one lesson I will carry forward, it is this: even when the storms are many and the victories feel few, life can still surprise us with moments so beautiful they make the struggle worth it.

2025 may have been a year of hard lessons—but it was also a year that reminded me why I keep going.

Why Emotional Labor Deserves Recognition

by Mothersense, posted in Uncategorized

The Cost of Being Unpaid

I often feel invisible. Not unseen in a dramatic way—but quietly, persistently taken for granted.

My empathy, my sympathy, my knowledge, and the countless things I offer other human beings move through the world without acknowledgment. I do not get paid to cook nourishing meals. I do not earn a wage for listening while someone vents, or for offering advice, or for helping untangle problems that aren’t mine. There is no paycheck for being available, for showing up emotionally, for holding space.

And yet, these things take time. They take energy. They take experience.

I have knowledge. I have lived enough life to understand nuance, to adapt, to learn quickly, to respond with compassion and clarity. I share all of it freely—especially with family. I give because I care, because connection matters to me, because helping feels natural. But because there is no monetary value attached to my time, no salary or hourly rate, it often feels as though my worth is somehow less.

Less than my sisters.
Less than anyone who earns money doing things.

I know—logically—that my skills have value. I know that emotional intelligence, adaptability, and lived experience are not insignificant. But where do they fit on a wage scale? What number do you assign to being the person others rely on? Why does value seem to exist only when it can be measured in dollars?

If I stopped doing all the things I normally do—if I were no longer available, no longer the listener, the helper, the cook, the steady presence—what then? Would the absence finally make the value visible? Or would it simply be filled by someone else, still unpaid, still unacknowledged?

Americans are relentlessly committed to monetizing every moment. A hobby can’t just be enjoyable—it has to become a side hustle. Creativity must be productive. Passion must be profitable. But a hobby stops being fun the moment it becomes a have to instead of a want to. When joy is turned into obligation, something essential is lost.

So I keep circling back to the same painful question:
If I am not valuable because I do not earn money… then what does that say about all the work that keeps people going but never appears on a balance sheet?

Maybe the problem isn’t my worth.
Maybe the problem is a system that only recognizes value when it can be billed, sold, or taxed.

And maybe being unpaid does not mean being unworthy—no matter how often the world makes it feel that way.

Embracing Life’s Little Moments Amidst Grief

by Mothersense, posted in Uncategorized

December Weight

December can feel heavy for so many people. The shorter days, the longer nights, and the reminders of the year coming to a close — it all seems to make every emotion sit a little closer to the surface. This week, that heaviness settled on me in a way I didn’t expect.

It started with a phone call from my sister. Her elderly neighbor had passed away on October 27th, and only this week did his son let her know. The news was sad, but what came next hit even harder.

On Wednesday, my brother called. His voice had that tone — the one that makes your stomach drop before you even hear the words. “Are you sitting down?” he asked. Then he said it: Carla passed away Sunday night in her sleep.

Carla. Thirty-one years old. The same Carla who, less than a year ago, stepped up to raise her older sister Leticia’s two young girls after Leticia died unexpectedly. And now, only eleven and a half months later, my cousin Patricia has lost two children. And before that… she had already lost a son to SIDS. A husband in an accident. Her dad. Her mom. Her stepdad.

My God. My heart aches at the thought of losing even one child — the idea of losing three is unimaginable.

In that heaviness, as I thought about the weight my cousin carries, my own memories surfaced too: the house fire in 2006, losing my brother-in-law in 2013 at age 37, the losses and upheavals that shaped me. But even as those memories resurfaced, I reminded myself: I survived those things. I came through them — maybe a little ragged, maybe a little stronger, or maybe somehow both.

And in that reflection came the question: How?
How do any of us get through things like this?

The answer is simpler than we expect:
One moment at a time.

That’s it. One breath, one task, one hour, one day at a time. Sometimes numb, sometimes terrified, sometimes held together by routine or prayer or pure grit — but still moving. Patricia is still going to work because she says it’s the only thing that feels normal while the rest of her life feels like a nightmare she can’t wake from. We all cling to something when the world tilts.

With all this swirling in my mind, I found myself returning to gratitude — not in comparison to anyone else’s pain, but in recognition of what is good, what is present, right now. We take so much for granted.

So look around:
Do you have a roof over your head?
Food to eat?
A job?
People who love you?
People you love?

Life isn’t perfect — not for any of us. Social media might make it seem like everyone else is living some shiny, effortless highlight reel, but real life is made of the moments that don’t make the cut.

So be grateful. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t overlook the small things that are actually the big things. And try not to let worry steal the few moments of peace you can claim.

Put your phone down a little more this season. Get some real face-to-face time. Call that old friend. Send a message to someone you’ve been thinking about. You never know — it might be exactly the medicine you need.

Holiday Blues: Finding Light in Dark Times

by Mothersense, posted in Uncategorized

The Perfect Storm

As we wind down the year and the days grow shorter, the holiday season settles in like a familiar rhythm—lights, music, gatherings, the scent of good food, and memories tucked into every corner. For many, it’s a time of joy. But for just as many, it’s the beginning of a perfect storm.

Longer nights. Dreary weather. A calendar full of holidays that once held laughter, tradition, and warmth—but now may carry the heavy weight of grief. This might be your first holiday season without a loved one. Or maybe it’s another year of feeling lonesome, out of place, or disconnected while the world around you insists that this is the season of togetherness. Everywhere you look—commercials, store displays, conversations—there’s a reminder of what this time of year is supposed to be. And if your heart isn’t in it, that reminder can sting.

Seasonal depression is real. Grief is real. Loneliness is real. And the darkness of winter has a way of amplifying what’s already there.

But here’s what’s also real: you are not the only one feeling this way.
Not even close.

Millions of people across the country and around the globe quietly carry similar feelings—sadness, heaviness, grief, fatigue, numbness. Many worry that something is “wrong” with them, that they’re somehow broken because they can’t summon holiday cheer on demand. But you aren’t broken. You aren’t failing. You aren’t even unusual. You are human, navigating a season that can be as complicated as it is beautiful.

And we all cope in different ways. Some people power through. Some find therapy or medication. Some dive into work or scroll endlessly on their phones. Some turn to hobbies, routines, or rituals that keep them grounded. I’m not advocating for one particular method—just acknowledging that we’re all doing the best we can with what we have.

But if the weight becomes more than temporary—if it presses hard, especially as this season closes in—please talk to someone. A friend. A pastor, priest, rabbi, or imam. A counselor or therapist. Someone who can listen, reflect, and help you feel less alone.

Because you aren’t alone.
People see you. People remember you. People count on you.
Your presence matters more than you know.

Please don’t let the perfect storm pull you under. Make it to the new year. Celebrate the tiniest victories along the way. If you did ten lunges today—high five. If you made your bed—HIGH FIVE. Those little things matter. They add up. They are proof that you’re still here, still showing up for yourself, even in the hardest season.

And that is no small thing.