I have been thinking a lot lately about stories. The ones I have told about myself. The ones I have told about my children. I feel as though I've started on a great undoing, but so far I've done nothing but begin to work a knot of string that surrounds a package. I think the package is multi-layered, well-wrapped, with all kinds of tape and styrofoam peanuts and god knows what kind of old shredded newspaper that protects the contents. At this point I have no idea what's even inside, as I've only become aware that there is an inside, that I am not the outer wrapping, or the package itself. This might sound like a ridiculous, overdue venture for a 43 year old, but there it is. And the biggest undoing I am concentrating on right now has to do with a part of myself that I've only known for just under a decade, and yet there are stories surrounding this part of me that got started back when I was a little girl. This is the story of me as a Mother.

For example, for the first time ever, I am posing questions to myself that I never even knew that I wondered about. I thought the answer already existed in me, like the color of my eyes. Questions like, Do you like being a mother? Are you glad you have so many children? And things like that. The dare is to answer without fear that the world will come crashing down and a bolt of lightning will strike my most beloved children if I answer, Only sometimes. The dare is to not get stuck in thinking that Only sometimes is any truer than a resounding Yes or a firm No. The dare is to recognize that all of the answers are allowed to live in me because I am multi-faceted and my soul knows a thousand languages and despite what I have believed about myself for so long, not every part of me is cut out to do this business of Mothering, after all.