i never wanted to be a mom

i never wanted to be a mom.

never.

that seems like such a selfish statement, especially when i know women who have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive, but my truth never came from selfishness, it came from fear.

when you're 6 years old and your mom dies it changes your perspective.

you see things differently.

you dream different dreams.

you want different things.

and the last thing i wanted to be was a mom.

but if i broke it down, the last thing i really wanted was to be my mom.

the mom that died and left her kids behind.

and so i never allowed myself to wish for it.

i never allowed myself to hope for it.

i never allowed myself  to want it.

when you grow up as a motherless daughter you don't grow up wanting that.

any of it.

because it's too scary.

you don't dream of a forever family when your own forever is ripped away in the middle of the night.

you can't allow yourself to tell a child "i'll always be here for you" when you know it's not true.

it's a promise you know you can't make.

no, when your mother dies and leaves you behind you stop believing in always.

you stop believing in a lot of things.

and you put up a wall with real emotions on one side and what you want people to see on the other.

because that's how you survive.

that's how i survived.

i refused to miss my mom. i refused to be sad. i refused to talk about it.

and i told myself i didn't want something that i really did want.

and one day i became my own worst fear.  

i became a mom.

and my life became a million unspoken "what ifs".

what if i die at 37 like she did?

what if i die when my children are little?

what if i die and never get to say goodbye?


it's an endless recording and it never stops playing.

what if i die? what if i die? what if i die?


when my son adam was born i caught myself holding my breath.

17 years later i find myself still holding it.

and when tommy was born years later i thought to myself "what am i doing?"

i still have moments when i think that.

what am i doing? what am i doing? what the heck am i doing?


and i feel my chest tighten. and feel myself start to panic.

and i feel myself smothering them, and holding them too close.

and i feel like i never should have done this.

any of it.

because every day, in the very back corner of my mind, a thought overtakes me. a thought that at any moment this could be all over.

this wonderful, crazy, beautiful life with my sons, with my family, could all be over.

but i stop myself. i stop myself from thinking that i never wanted to be a mom.

because even in the million moments of crazy panicked uncertainty i see the truth.

i feel the truth.

i know the truth.

and the truth is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life

was becoming the very person i said i never wanted to be.