Life As It Actually Is

This life is beautiful.

This life is heavy.

I have this bold, beautiful life and somehow, I’m drowning a little inside it.

I love my life. I love what’s in it. I love that I have the ability to choose what I do and don’t want to carry. And still, there are inevitable things that push their way into the beauty. Hard things. Loud things. Seasons that don’t ask permission.

All of our children are teenagers right now, and I’m fairly certain this phase alone could put me in an early grave. There’s the weight of being a stepmother, the bruises that come with that title, and none of it has anything to do with the kids themselves. It’s the space around it. The assumptions. The judgment. The quiet attacks you’re expected to absorb gracefully.

I move through the world responsible for four kids, three dogs, a home, and the invisible magic of motherhood. The moments, the memories, the emotional labor. All while working two jobs and trying to maintain some sense of who I am outside of what I’m needed for. I read when I can. I write when I can. I can’t remember the last time I picked up my camera for pleasure instead of income.

Creativity used to live at my fingertips. Now it feels like a luxury. Something borrowed, not owned. And that’s a strange grief for me. A quiet one. A sad one I don’t talk about much.

And still, I enjoy my life.

I sit on my front porch and breathe in the beauty of it. I notice what’s good. I let myself feel it when it shows up.

Eric is an anchor I didn’t know I needed. He can hold me when life falls apart, and that holding feels like home. Whether I need to soar or crash land. My children are good kids with good hearts, even when they’re making shitty decisions. But still, all around, I see so much good in them.

My dogs are a lot , but they are also a lot of love, exactly when I need it most.

I’m grateful that I have what I need. That tomorrow doesn’t scare me. That I have work I enjoy and coworkers who make the days lighter. My friendships are blossoming again, after a long stretch of feeling mostly alone. It’s nice. Grounding, even. That I have a steady stream of connection outside my home. People who send me TikToks because they thought of me. A best friend who texts me every day, a small, steady lifeline she probably doesn’t even realize she’s throwing my way.

Life is full of hardship and somehow, there is still so much good here.

This is what life looks like right now.

I’m happy and then my stress make me cry in a flash.
I’m happy and then I’m attacked for being a stepmom.
I’m happy and then my husband is being degraded, and I’m angry on his behalf.
I’m happy and then my kids push, prod, and test the edges of my boundaries.

Joy and ache, living side by side.

And yet, I’m content.

Not because it doesn’t hurt, but because I know the pain isn’t forever. I believe, in many ways, that pain is a choice. Not the pain itself, but what we do with it. I can be smacked around by life and still choose to notice the stars when I step out onto my front porch at night.

I think more people need to try this. To feel it. To look at what’s being handed to them and say “You don’t get to take me down with you”. You don’t have the power to take me down with your bullshit.

I will survive. I will thrive. And I will stay alive in spite of it.

So this is where I am.

Standing in the middle of a life I love, learning how to carry it without losing myself. Some days I do it well. Some days I don’t. But tonight, the stars are still there. And for now, that feels like enough.