But when I saw the sense of independence, I felt like I lost a sense of myself because I think in that moment also I was yearning and looking for someone to love me.

And I'll be totally honest and say it.

My love for my children came from wanting to love them so hard and wanting to be loved back.

Yesterday I took a moment to digress on some things.

We're coming off of Mother's Day holiday and I, you know, I just began to write.

Writing for me is like secondhand.

I have to kind of get it out.

In my head, I tend to overthink so writing it is

kind of like letting it go. And so I started to reminisce on my first taste of motherhood and I became a

mother younger than I had wanted to. But life is full of surprises and it does so the way that it is supposed to be and I recall

trying to you know be a mother and going through college and trying to handle a job and the

notion of responsibilities were too much and I also remember just being afraid that I, sitting in the capacity of yesterday,

literally like being a child and today having to throw all of my responsibility into adulthood

and being the overseer of a little person. It was, it was a lot. It was a lot.

It was a lot of pressure compounded. And I often question if I was able to navigate the way that I should have.

It's funny to me that for many women, we have references of, you know, mothers through our own mothers and through our aunts and through our grandmothers.

We have the prime example of how the inner workings of motherhood work and how we love and

how we, you know, give the duty of responsibility, how we put our best foot forward and do what it is required for us to do to be the best mom ever.

But I'll be honest that there were many times that I just didn't get it right.

I'll be honest and say this as well.

There were times that I in my younger years showed up toxic and say this as well. There were times that I, in my younger years, showed up toxic, and now I know it in my older years.

There was a place and a point where I would tell my boys to not cry because boys don't cry.

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