We wrapped our 7th birthday week and life together with getting this little one’s tonsils and adenoids out.

Our calendar was flooded with weekly therapies for my youngest and second and third opinions for this one’s sleep issues.

Motherhood is a doozy. I’m constantly dancing between trusting my intuition and releasing my anxiety.

My postpartum days with this girl are a dark cloud of pain, confusion, and longing.

Wishing I could do more, come out the haze more, take her to all the things other moms could physically do…more.

Some part of my inner child tugs on the lies of not feeling good enough, as if I’m still missing the mark.

But in the process of letting go of the lies and directing attention to presence and safety for myself and them, she awakened things I didn’t know were there.

In raising her, she raised me.

Towards life, towards healing, towards tending.

When this week hit, I couldn’t help but reflect on 7 in the Bible as a means of sabbath and completeness and then wonder what it means for us in this year.

While I’ve been aching for wholeness in my mind and body, perhaps, God answered this in other ways.

Through the permission I give myself and her to be, to make mistakes, to feel all the feelings.

Through the steps I’ve taken and she’s taken to try new things, take up space, and listen to our bodies.

And while the distress of anxiety can cloud so much, I’m sensing, maybe this 7th year can be one of more play, more rest, more trusting I’m as whole as I need to be to be a safe and secure place to rest. And really, that’s all she’s ever needed from me.

Dear Little Brown Girl,

I love you more than I even realize. May that love be the refuge you need as you venture out and return. Because even when these days are so long and I wonder if it’s enough, you remind me, we are enough. Our shared presence, enough. May you always know, I got you, little one.