By The Grace of Fire and Flames...

 ...you're the face of the future, the blood in my veins...

When a child is small and developing into a person of their own, they cycle through what they want to be when they grow up. As a child, I cycled too; my first "dream" was to be an attorney. I wanted to be the girl version of Matlock, arguing my case in court, rich and famous. At night, I'd sink into a bathtub as big as a swimming pool, full of bubbles, surrounded by music and candles. And I'd drink wine and celebrate the ways my wins made the world better for the people I helped.

When my parents divorced, I switched focus. I didn't need to be famous; I'd get rich helping little kids win in custody battles, instead of always one parent or the other, while the child was unheard, stuck in the middle. In my parents' divorce, I felt like a pawn; no one listened to what I wanted, where I wanted to go, who I wanted to go with. I was shuffled from parent to parent, as one would win one court date only to lose the next. Or worse - win the court date and the custody that came with it...only to decide that it wasn't such a win after all. So I decided to become a "lawyer for kids," to hear them out and help them get what they wanted.

There were a lot of awful things happening at that time so at some point the court awarded me a guardian ad litem, basically the real-life version of my career dream. I spent time with my "lawyer," but when she failed (in my young opinion) to speak adequately for my needs, I changed focus again, this time because I lost faith in the justice system and what it meant for the people dependent on it.

As a teen, I wanted to be a singer; my cousins and I memorized and sang every song we liked on the radio, performing at nearly every family gathering. We chose sets, and we rehearsed as often as possible, recording ourselves to listen back, critique ourselves, and fix our errors. (Thankfully, this was before American Idol became a good place for the youth of America to humiliate themselves.) After that, I wanted to act. I thought about whether I could handle constant auditions, being passed over for parts, always holding out for the big one. The thing was, I didn't want acting jobs that took me far from home; I knew I wanted a family of my own by then, so I decided big screen acting wasn't for me. I wanted to be around to take care of my kids, so I kept my dream small and thought about sitcoms and soap operas.

It seemed enough like a regular nine to five - but with money and security, and just enough glamour to be interesting. I could be fancy, and then go home and be the kind of mom who could give her children everything. (Since I grew up well below the poverty line, this part was important to me.) Eventually I got more serious, and more cynical. I lived in a small town and didn't have the kind of stage parents who create careers - I had the kind of family who thought kid's dreams were cute but never really feasible.

I'm good at lots of things, a lot of different things come naturally to me, and I have extremely varied interests. I thought about being a doctor because the inner workings of the human body fascinated me, but schooling and bodily fluids turned me away. (If I were alive a dozen centuries ago, I'd train myself to become the local herb woman. Useful and necessary to the community, and something valuable to contribute.) Another easy interest for me was psychology. Empathy is my natural state, and I'm usually one of the people my loved ones turn to for help or advice. I might have liked to be a therapist or counselor of some kind. (I guess this one worked out; I love my role as a Stephen Minister with my church.)

But over all the different ideas, the one passion that takes hold of my entire being is writing. I always loved reading, so as a little girl - and throughout the years since - I had this fantasy of walking through a bookstore and seeing books with MY name on the covers. I wanted to leave the trailer park behind, to write dozens of well-loved books. Maybe hundreds. I could take care of my family, see that my loved ones had what they needed. Have more than enough - and be the kind of person who shared the abundance. I wanted to travel to the kinds of beautiful places a poor kid like me could only imagine. Book covers were where I found my heroes; Diana Gabaldon, Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks, Johanna Lindsey.

I've always been a creative person - I have strong and frequently changing emotions, and a deep-seated sense of how different I usually am from others. But as I grew and matured, only two dreams really stuck. Writing and motherhood. And I did accomplish those dreams - though on a much smaller scale than expected. I wrote multiple novels, and I'm nowhere near done yet. I raised pretty good kids - even if sometimes they're horrible to me. And though I have days when I ask myself, "What were you thinking?" I generally love being a mother.

In motherhood, I set my other dreams aside in favor of a focus on breaking generational cycles, allowing my children to be the priority when it came to my time and my goals, striving to give them security of self even when it couldn't be the financial security I always wanted for them. I was open about who I am, where I came from, my struggles, my feelings, and what I want from life. And while it may have been a little insane to give up my fancy-woman dreams in exchange for telling little people to "stop picking your nose," or "leave your butt alone," I've watched  as my little girls bloomed and became strong-willed, life-filled young women. They're still learning, and as they should, they'll still mess up.

The thing is, I know they'll do all that learning knowing there's a safe place to fall - and this Mother's Day, I'm confident that after all these years of sick kids and homework and school runs and chorus concerts, after setting my dreams aside to live out a much higher calling, I'm still so much more than "just" a mother. Through my children, and hopefully their children, I hope that when it's time, I'll leave the world having touched far more than my own home.

But as a mother who desperately wants to be a good example, I'm also learning to accept that in order to show my children their dreams are worth chasing, I have to meet my dreams head on. In so many ways, thank you for following along, for supporting this every day, yoga-pants wearing, no makeup, still-dreaming mama. If you still have your mom around, if you're able, let this be your reminder to call her. Search your heart for something she's done well, and tell her how much you appreciate it.

And if you're a mother yourself, I hope your kids don't put anything weird in your pancakes.

*song lyric from "Believer," Imagine Dragons