Breathing life back into this space

 It's April, 2025.

I have four children. Three I've written about so far on this blog, one I'll catch up on soon. 

I have been a single mother to all four of them for a little over two years.

I have been told I'm made for this. "Who else could do it?" they say. "I don't know how you do it?" they say. "You were born for this." but here I stutter. I am not sure any one single person was born to raise four children alone, constantly being pulled by their needs and constantly faced by where I must fall short. Who else could do it? Many people do it. How? They just do. I wake up and I do. I make the breakfasts and get everyone dressed, I sneak in a shower every 3rd day and let the water run over my skin and say "You've got this". I try to do something for myself as often as I can manage. I fall short on all my goals, and I fall short for them, but I keep looking at the targets I'm hitting and I keep waking up in the morning.

Yesterday I got my tubes taken out. I spent the tail end of my anesthesia looking for a specific picture, and it brought me to this blog where I marveled at Lane and Margo when they were young. I marveled at the relationship I had in my 20s (love you Colt) even as I acknowledged it was the best thing to let it go (but damn if I didn't make it look so pretty before I let it go). I felt a momentary pang that I will never hold another child in my stomach. MOMENTARY, I tell you. Because my reality at 38 is that I'm a single mother of four. And my resources and time are maxed out. This is the limit. This is my limit.

When I do yoga I PUSH IT. I sweat in 98 degree infrared heat and I do every crazy modification I know - I do the arm balances, the handstand hops, the birds of paradise, the supreme balances. Last week in yoga I pushed and pushed and I stood up, and the room spun. There was a white haze over all the other sweaty bodies and I said out loud "Mama is taking a break", and I laid down. There I stayed. And while I breathed in the heat all around me, I thought that knowing your limit is one of the most powerful things I can do. This is my limit. I will give it my all, until I hit my limit. And i know that giving more than that will deplete, so I surrender to rest.

I will not be depleted. I know my limits. This is the family. In its entirety. Four of them, and me.