My Soul is a Little Split Lately

Dear Maggie and Willow,

A lot has happen recently that keeps me from writing. But I won’t bore you with adult responsibilities, recently I got back from my first vacation away from y'all. Me and your Dad went to New York and ya’ll stayed with Grammy and Papaw for 3 whole days.

It felt weird being apart from a such a large piece of myself… Let me explain (in the most abstract annoying way possible).

When you are a child, a teen, or young adult your world revolves around you. You worry about worldly things and you may love your family and your God but your whole soul resides in your body. You see things only from your point of view and its hard to understand true absolute love. You want Christmas to be fun for you. You want a vacation to be memorable for you. You find a husband that will be good for you. You want to know what God can do for you & your little world. You may be appreciative and thankful and that completely-understandable self-centeredness is normal... or at least it was for me.

Now as a 30-year old mother of 2 little girls I began thinking about life not from a self-centered point of view, but from your small, innocent, new point of view, and sometimes a much more spiritual point of view. Everything has taken on more meaning. My soul doesn’t just reside in my body, but I leave a big part of it with y'all, and that is a weird feeling. As a mom I worry a lot about that part of my soul, its very humbling and vulnerable.

We are entering that stage in your life that you are starting to understand things and I don't have all the answers.  The older I get the more I realize I won’t ever have all the answers, but I hope to at least stay ahead of y'all by 27ish years. I'm only human, and I'm starting to realize my parents were only human. I really want you to think I have the answers. I want you to think I got all of this under control, I want you to think I hung the moon tonight. My parents sure had me amazed, still do, well at least by 27 years or so.

My life revolves around making your childhood magical, educational, and safe. I am not in control of your quantity of life or that part of my soul I left with you, and that terrifies me as I am sure it terrifies all moms and dads. I am in charge of your quality of life. The quality of that little part of my soul that I am leaving with you. I have given myself over to being your mom. Being your protector. Being your magic maker. Being your teacher, leader and your childhood maker.

I love more since being a mom, I love bigger. I love 100% absolutely. I don’t just love y'all more but I love your daddy more. I love my parents more. I love Jesus more. I love people more and I love all of that much deeper that I can ever think possible. God feels different now too, I know that sounds weird but to me I am more appreciative, and amazed, and even terrified at all that He has given me and that He can take away.

Together we grow, together we are figuring things out. I am not the same mom I will be in 20 years its comforting to think that my mom was just as clueless as I am 20 years ago, that's why they call them GRANDmoms.