Wow. I just looked at how long it’s been since I’ve updated my blog, and I’m super embarrassed and a little sad about it. I’ve been busy, and had lots of things I intended to write about, but the posts never happened. If you’re wondering what happened to me, Instagram is probably the best place to follow me with any regularity, that is, unless I get my act together after this post.

I’ll try! I really will! I have things to say!  I’m just really tired at 9pm, when most of my writing used to happen.

I’ve written about Mother’s Day before. It stings to read it a year later, but that’s okay. I’m not sure it will ever not sting, even though, with every passing year, it’ll feel more like brushing against a raspberry bush versus a wasp honing in on the inside of my arm, getting scared, and stabbing me repeatedly while I flail around.

The thing about having a kid is that I have a lot less time to be self-indulgent, even with grief, and it feels really contradictory, loving my kid the way I do, in this overwhelming, heart crushing way and feeling continually sad about a loss that would have negated his existence had it not happened.

I’ve never really been an everything happens for a reason person. It has a sort of romanticism that I think is lovely in writing and storytelling, but a bit weird applied to daily life, where love is most often expressed through small, heartfelt things like folding laundry and doing dishes on the same day, or offering up part of your chocolate bar when you don’t really want to share. Grand gestures happen, sure, but without the day to day filling, love would be very hard to sustain, so I do think it’s important to try and acknowledge the little things.

Back to everything happening for a reason. If you’re suffering from fertility issues, or haven’t met someone you want to have a kid with, or any myriad of other reasons you want to be celebrating Mother’s Day in the very traditional sense, this saying is basically crafted to make you feel terrible. If you’ve just survived a war and lost your family, this saying is bullshit. If you’ve narrowly survived a forest fire, but aren’t sure if the home you have to go home to, the home you’ve spent years and sacrificed building is still standing, NOPE. If someone you love is suffering from cancer, GO AWAY, WORDS. When you’re in the midst of a shitty time in your life, there are no reasons. There is just terribleness.

Everything happening for a reason is bullshit. The real truth of the matter, if you get right down to it, is that humans are amazingly resilient beings.

Women are amazingly resilient beings.

I say this with no ego attached.

Everything happens because we persevere. We chart a course, and we make it happen. Maybe we get swept out to sea for a while. Maybe we have to plot a new course that takes us to a different place. Maybe we need to stop for a bit and stitch our sails. Maybe we make mistakes along the way, and read the stars wrong, or turn our map into a Pinterest fail that ends up in the garbage.

Life may not look like how we imagine it, but we go on, and, to quote Queen B and Jay Z’s grandma, we make lemons out of lemonade, and it’s delicious and refreshing.

If you’re reading this and you’re desperately trying to get to where I am, covered in sticky bits and exhausted, but pretty darn happy, here are some words that may help, but could also not help at all.

– Motherhood is hard. It is the hardest job you will ever do. You will be incredibly invested in it because biology (and maybe because you love your kid), and it will make everything else that used to be easy hard. You will not recognize yourself some days.

– Motherhood is rewarding. But there are many days when you have to creatively interpret what rewarding means to you, in the context of the day.

– Motherhood is not to be missed if it’s something you want. It is worth the struggle to get there, and it is worth the struggle once you’re there. It’s fine not to want it, but you should be very sure that it’s not because you think it’ll be hard to achieve. I’m not specifically talking about the act of carrying a child as motherhood, because it’s not. The two are related, cousins even, but they’re not the same thing.

– Your struggle may not look like anyone else’s that you know, but you should find people who are struggling similarly, and struggle together. And fall apart together. And celebrate together. These people may be in person people, or they may be people who you never embrace physically, but have your back across time and space. They’re out there. They’re awesome. You need them.

Anyway, these words might mean nothing to you, and that’s okay. I’m far from an expert on motherhood or fertility issues, and my perspective is just that, mine. Everyone has their own story, and they’re all important.

Good luck out there.