💐 Mother's Day is Every Day

Where do broken moms go?

Even though Mother’s Day was observed and celebrated earlier this month, mothers are mothers every single day. If you’re a mother (or mother-figure) and feel like a cracked vase full of love while still [barely] holding it together— you are not alone, mama.

Imposter syndrome hits differently when you're raising other people. You’re not just questioning your ability, you’re questioning your worth. Honestly, I don’t know what it’s like to be an adult without being a mom.

Once you become a mother, especially a present mother, you never truly get to leave. You don’t get to check out. Even if the world lets go of you, your kids never do, and you never let go of them.

So, where do broken moms go?

We don’t disappear. We bend. We break. We build back.

We go to the bathroom and lock the door for five minutes of silence. We go to our journals, our prayer corners, our playlists, our wine glasses, our therapist’s office.
We go to the group chats with our soul sisters who get it. We go to sleep, sometimes in tears, and wake up with swollen eyes, just to do it all over again.

People talk a lot about moms who "lose themselves.” But what about the ones who were never given space to ever find themselves in the first place?

I’m a mom of three teenagers. My oldest son turned 18 in April, meaning I have a whole legal adult now. I’ve been raising them through a marriage and a divorce, through heartbreak and healing, and through moments when I didn’t even want to be here for my damn self— but I had to be.

You can leave a job. You can leave a marriage. You can leave your hometown, your past, your reputation, even your name, but a real mother doesn’t just get to leave her kids. Even when you want to disappear, there’s always someone calling you “Mom.” That word will tether you to this Earth whether you like it or not.

I carried these kids in my body. Nine months of swollen ankles, morning sickness, sleepless nights, ribs kicked from the inside. And then labor. That’s the kind of pain that splits you open and still somehow becomes love.

You don’t walk away from that. Not in your mind. Not in your soul.

So when I’m cautious (maybe even anxious) and watching everything and everyone, it’s not because I’m crazy, but because I have to make it home to three human beings who depend on me to live, breathe, and show up every single day.

I’m not a “wild” mom. I’m a watchful one, and I hate the judgment that comes with that. All the people giving side-eyes and backhanded comments while society expects us to be perfect or labels us as unstable can go touch grass.

Being a mother is a lifetime surveillance system. You’re constantly scanning for danger, for risk, for ways to protect your kids from the very pain you never had the chance to escape.

And all the while, I try to be a good daughter. Still, I try to raise a daughter with grace like I was. Still, I try to show up for everyone while screaming inside for someone to ask me if I’m okay.

So where do broken moms go?

We go to the bathroom and cry into a hand towel. We go to bed late, because the only silence we get is after everyone else is asleep. We go online and search for words that feel like us because no one in our real life knows how deep this runs. We don’t get to leave. We make room in the chaos to find ourselves again piece by piece.

Mother’s Day was celebrated and passed. I’m not pretending.I’m still standing.
Still sacred. Still stitched together by love, exhaustion, instinct, and fight. Not broken. Not perfect. Just real. And that’s more than enough.

We are not perfect. But we are present. And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

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