A Mom Around 40

 I don't talk about my beliefs or my faith as often as many. There was a time in my life where everything I had was branded with WWJD, a cross or a Bible verse. Over the years, however, as life's waves rose and crashed, bruising me along the ride, I found myself at odds with those beliefs I had been raised on.  It's an odd thing, finding yourself at odds with the Lord; too young and immature to realize you bear the responsibility of your own choices but with enough life experience to be angry at the inevitable things in life, like death. Anger will eat at you like a poison, just like self-pity will, and together they will leave you isolated and alone. I walked through too many years of my life feeling completely hollowed out, just a dark hole inside a body that was far from being cared for. Now, for me, this started with the loss of my Dad, who was not only my best friend and hero but he was my spiritual leader, literally. Losing him turned my whole world upside down and I

 Every year, on some platform (if not all of them), I celebrate Lola's birthday by sharing her story, our story. It doesn't get old. Is it repetitive? Sure, it is. But it is worth telling. She is worth celebrating. It's not just the story of her birth, though. It is the story of her existence that is so life-changing. I was 36-years-old when I found out, in complete surprise and shock, that I was pregnant. At 36, I was living like most 21-year-olds. I had job that wasn't much to brag about. It brought in a couple bucks above minimum wage and barely paid the bills, and I do mean barely. I was in a slew of bad relationships. The relationship with Lola's birth father wasn't abusive, which which a step up from the ones who came before him, but it also wasn't anything to write home about. It was definitely on it's way out the door when I found out I was pregnant. I carried the, "It's just me and no one else is getting hurt so just let me do what I wa

 Sometimes I love the freedom of being an adult. I can stay up as late as I want, say as many cuss words as I want and eat candy for breakfast if I want. I like the freedom to set my own pace and make my own choices. HOWEVER, there are a lot of things about adulthood that no one EVER warned me about when I was young and dreaming of the day when I would be out from under the oppressing rules of childhood, like eat your vegetables and get eight hours of sleep (how dare something so ludicrous be asked of me)! In middle school and high school when you have friends they are, like, totally your BFFs forever and ever and ever. I mean, you sign it at the bottom of every, single note that you pass in the hallway so it has to be true, right? Your first boyfriend is your one true love and you dream of moving far away from your parents, collecting Beanie Babies and living happily ever after. But the slow reality of it is this: as you grow up, relationships find space. One day your bestie for, like

 Man! Quarantine is no joke, yall! All this time at home has left me with lots of time to discover lots of things. For instance, my love of yoga pants. I always told my sister-in-law I didn't get the appeal. If it wasn't pajama pants or jeans, it wasn't for me. Then I put on the good 'ol COVID 20 ... or maybe, just maybe, the COVID 30. Enter yoga pants to save the day and now I am team yoga-pants and I will never go back! But, in addition to my plain jane wardrobe choices, quarantine has left me a lot of time to question, ponder and process things - like, all the things. I have faced the question of what happens to Lola if anything should ever happen to me. I mean, it's no secret her biological father bailed long before she was born. And when COVID really, truly started rearing it's ugly head, I became truly fearful of who would raise my child should I ever not be around. Then, I faced the even UGLIER scenario of what I would do if any of this ugliness in the wo

      It's the thing that all rom-coms and dramas are built around. It's the thing that every song is written about. At my age, love looks alot different than I ever thought it would when I was 17.      Once upon a time, I thought love was all about butterflies, passion, flowers and chocolates and getting naked absolutely as much as possible.Then, when I never found anyone who could keep the excitement of what I thought love was going, I decided that it must not be for me. Then I met Bryan. Bryan was my first true romance after becoming a mom and he has taught me everyday what real love is.      It started off just like everything does: new, exciting, passionate intimacy and all the things that bring on those famous butterflies. We have been together almost a year and we are still in what most people call the newlywed phase. But, neither of us is teenagers and our expectation of romance and love look so much different than it did before. For the first six months of our

It's been awhile since I posted. I have drafts upon drafts of blogs on my phone that I, simply, got too lazy to post. When you are least expecting it, life has a way of, not only, catching up with you but taking the lead and leaving you feeling exhausted in the effort to catch back up. That has been the story since my last post. I was working part time, going to school full time and momming 24/7. I made the decision to go back to work full time, which I thought would be more heart breaking than it actually was. I found that over the last couple of years, I had missed having conversations with adults that didn't revolve around diapers or bottles or anything baby related. Now, that doesn't mean that I didn't miss Lola because I did. Her photos were all over my office and I talked about her and what a proud momma I was constantly. However, it was nice to be able to discuss other things using the vocabulary of someone older than one. Unfortunately, my boss wasn't a fan