The In Between

To say that I am not the woman I used to be, feels like the greatest down play of my life. When I think back to the woman I was when Daren and I got married - almost 13 years ago and then to the woman I was a mere 5 years ago, to the woman I am now....wowzers...I am light years apart from any of those versions of me.

The challenge to becoming a Mother for me has less to do with being a Mother and more to do with how I reconcile the rest of me and amalgamate all the parts of myself into one whole being.

When I became a Mother to Lux, it felt like coming home. It felt like I was always intended to do this and that she was the home that I had been walking toward. She is the reason I knew deep down, through 11 years of infertility, that I had to keep going and that there was a little human waiting to become ours. She was always meant to be ours and I was always meant to be her Mom. There is absolutely no doubt in any aspect of my being that I was ever supposed to exist in this life without her.

Through the ups and downs of life and the expectations of the world, being her Mom has been an anchor, a place I know and feel safe in. Even when I am challenged by her learning or how to handle certain situations, I feel fueled to learn and grow alongside her.

This is the one part of me...the Mother part. The other part of me is what feels like everything that existed before she was earthside.

I am a wife, sister, daughter, auntie, friend, niece, cousin etc. for my family and I am a counsellor, an entrepreneur, a healer, a helper, a crystal lover, an encourager, a spiritual being, an emotional being, a guide etc. and the list goes on.

the challenge for me is not that I don't know who I am or that I want to go back to who I was before, the challenge that I have is I feel like I am living either in the extreme of one part of me or the other OR I am living in the In Between.

The In Between - The space that is blank, available for interpretation and depicts a space that you go through as opposed to stay in. The In Between is the space you land in when you are between where you have been and where you are going.

My In Between feels different though. It is the space that is filling in. It is the space between the segmented parts of myself and eventually the in-between will be encompassed by the integration of all my parts and for now, I travel to the parts I need in the moment instead of having them all readily available to me. Slowly, it feels like the parts of me are integrating.

Being a working mother, an entrepreneur who lives to help others, a wife who wants to have a successful and thriving marriage, a woman who wants to take care of her mind, body and soul...some days it all feels like too much.

At the same time, spring feels like the perfect time to be in this place. I feel like the garden that is stripped of anything green. All of the life and happenings are occuring under the soil. The germination of seeds planted, the cracking of the seed walls, the pushing against and through the hard damp soil, with the knowing that brighter, more cohesive days are coming. That being a Mom is meant to be all encompassing and it's my turn to have it all.

Perhaps this is the message to stop trying to push through the in between. Stop trying to get to the next destination. Allow yourself the time to germinate and maybe you too will find that the in between is actually just the garden before it begins to sprout and bloom. What if the in between is exactly where you need to be and your patience and courage to embrace the space is the currency required to receive the gift of the bloom.

With Love,

Stephanie