I’ve spent a lot of late nights on this porch chasing my dreams. I am full of them, alongside hope all packed into my heart.

I am blessed with time freedom because of Young Living, so my days are busy with the things I choose.

I love our days. I love that I get to be in charge of them. I love that I get to prioritize and schedule and consciously decide to be present for Eliot.

But comfortable days aren’t the extent of the dreams I have for myself and my growing family. Comfortable days don’t make me feel proud, because they don’t ask much of me.

Comfortable days don’t leave me feeling the good kind of tired— the kind of tired where you’re so happy to crawl into bed and think... “today, today I did my best. today I lived fully.”

So at night, I work. Eliot goes down, Matthias tucks in, and I am here, on this porch, working.

Work requires different parts of me to show up, stay alive.

Work requires different parts of my mind and spirit. It gives me balance because it draws on parts of me that aren’t awakened by motherhood.

I’m lucky to be able to choose presentness in my motherhood. But I need more than just motherhood - because I am more than just a mother.

I’m grateful I have these nights alone, chasing dreams. I get to set myself on fire and feel passion and exhaustion and it makes me look forward to waking up & doing absolutely nothing but snuggle my baby until 10am.

I think I am living in the best of both worlds.