Flashback, and I’m in my early 20s having a “casual” conversation in the car with my mom: “I don’t know if I ever want to have to kids,” I confess to her.

“Then don’t,” she replies. So much wisdom and experience in those two words. No judgement, no questioning me as to why not. The conversation was short and sweet, but it stayed living “rent free” in the back of my mind for years.

My mom died unexpectedly four days after my 30th birthday. Hello, Saturn Return, you dark b*tch. By that time, I had already been married for five years. Children were still an option, but at 30, just having suffered such a major loss, I felt more like a kid in that moment than I did at 20-something in the car with her having that heart-to-heart.

And what does a child do when they experience pain, at least the invisible kind, the emotional kind? They run far away from it. My mom passed in January of 2019. Six months later, I was in a new town with my husband, had a new job, new friends. I promised myself that I’d never go back to my hometown again.

Then only a short year later, in my new town, new house, new everything, we’re hearing that we might have to shelter in place because of this new disease, COVID-19. It was spreading like wild fire around the United States, and by March of 2020, we were sheltering in place. On Mother’s Day, only a couple of months later, I received more unexpected news. I’m pregnant! I remember being sort of surprised, but really, why? Girl, you were doing the deed during your shelter in place like it was going to save your life!

Getting pregnant and having my daughter saved me in a way that I know now only had to be from heaven, my mom and God.

I gave birth to my daughter in January 2021, on almost exactly the anniversary of my mother’s passing. I struggled deeply with postpartum anxiety and a renewed state of grief now that I was a mother, without her own mother. I wondered how I was going to learn to parent this sweet, soft newborn in my arms, now that I didn’t have my mom to go to for advice. I even projected worry and sadness into the future, thinking of my child without a maternal grandmother. All of this didn’t help my already frazzled mental state. I was recklessly sleep-deprived for at least the first 2.5 years after giving birth.

Yet in that frantic, chaotic time, my daughter helped me learn skills that I never even knew I had. Like how to not cry out in pain when you’ve stubbed your toe because you are holding a sleeping baby and you don’t dare wake them up, or how to rise gracefully at 2 a.m. because the baby’s hungry or needs a diaper change. In all seriousness, that ultimately taught me how to calm my mind. I picked up on how to better control my emotions, thus eliciting calmer reactions.

In those first 2.5 years of her life, she also taught me how important letting go was for my soul’s evolution. She empowered me to see that I was making myself stuck by being in an unhealthy marriage. I lost who I was and didn’t know who I was supposed to become. Everything was hazy, until I realized that it was because I was holding onto something that was no longer in alignment with me. I finally left that relationship and dissolved that marriage, clinging to the prayer and the hope that this new life would only be for me and my daughter’s highest and greatest good.

Now almost three years later, I sit and write, still energetically feeling only on the cusp of my transformation journey. I think back to the many decisions I made and to the opportunities I didn’t take because I was grieving or stuck in a limiting belief about myself, but through everything, I know one thing for certain: my mom and my daughter are spiritually working in tandem to help me steer my life in the right direction again. I’m focusing on myself this time around rather than others. I am creating new boundaries and having hard vulnerable conversations to keep them in place. I am picking up new hobbies and learning new skills. I am getting out of my comfort zone and feeling more alive in the process.

And if you’ve read this far and my story has resonated with you in some way, I encourage you to let go as well. Let go of that relationship. Let go of your comfort zone. Let go of the fear of being alone and embrace your solitude.

Maybe it’s your job that has you codependent. Let go of living a “paycheck to paycheck” kind of life. Let go of pleasing everyone all of the time, and ask yourself this question: “If I am the one solely responsible for my life and the way it plays out, am I truly satisfied with how it’s currently going?”

No? Then adjust accordingly. I believe in you. You have always been deserving of an extraordinary life; it is our journey and our purpose to give that to ourselves.

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