Life happens.

Photo by the amazing Heather Armstrong.

I try very hard to be a good mom.  It's important that you realize this, because I didn't plan to be a mom when I became one.  It just happened, like these things do and bam, I was pregnant.

Weird.

I feel like a teenager.

I was so young and I didn't realize.  All of my life I had tried to be older.  This annoyed my friend, because she was very mature and enjoyed every stage of her life.  She was so good at that.  I, on the other hand, lived fully in my future, shunning the rites of passage, because I decided to jump ahead and just live how I wanted, as an adult.  When you are 16 and your parents are not fully aware of you, this is possible, it is not however, a good idea.

When I was 24, I married the most amazing man.  Then all of a sudden, as I was just beginning to grow up, I got pregnant.

Then I grew up really, really fast.  Because if you're having a hard time understanding what it really means to be an adult, nothing will get you there faster than having to work for a demanding infant.  

I was always shocked at the amount of care necessary, it really was a round the clock, full time job.  There were no breaks and less gratitude.  Then because I was in it, we said, hey let's add another to this mix.  Just as it started to get easier, it got harder again.

So I grew.  I grew and I grew and I grew.  

Not in the way that many others are able to.  

Not with my stellar talents and amazing good looks.

Not with my mark left shining through the city.

Not with my degrees.

That was not my path.  I learned, as many do, in my own way.

Through broken hopes and dreams.  

Through setting myself aside.

Through pouring out every bit of me to the lives that needed it.  Then finding more and giving that too.

Through loving my husband, my children more than all I wanted to accomplish.

I let it go.  

I opened my hands and gave them to cleaning bathrooms, making dinner, washing clothes, holding babies when they cried, welcoming my husband after a long days work.  

All that I thought I was and thought would bring me value, flowed like water down the drain.

I think in moments like this, I could say I lost it all.  It's only here, I realize how much I have gained.  I didn't follow the traditional routes and am now working my way back through.  I am growing next to my children as I teach and train them.  

Life doesn't always follow a well charted path.  It dips and curves and bends.  

If you only pursue the end, you'll miss the amazing journey you've had in the process.

I have become a wife and a mother.  I've learned to let go of what I thought was the most important.

I've learned to live in the day and in the moment.  

I've learned to love more deeply and passionately than could be described.  

Here, I can say, I am living my dreams.  It is not in the tomorrows, but in each day.  The holding of my child's hand as we cross the street.  Juggling screaming children through the grocery store.  Learning to ignore the stares and sneers.  Laughing at the judgments oozing from others, because I used to judge.  

My life is not perfect.  I don't have everything I want.  

I do have everything I love.  And that is truly what counts, so you could say, I have it all.

Photo by the amazing Lacy Fontaine. 

So blessed by all of the incredible photographers I know!!  They're talent is extraordinary.