(Prefer to listen? See above. This is me reading The Warriors and the Fairy Children, from Existentially Amused.)

Last night,
under the full moon,
I had a vision.

I saw the mothers.

All the mothers I knew.

We were crossing a desert
with our children on our backs.

We were wounded.

Bandages wrapped around our arms,
our legs,
our hearts.

Some wounds were ours.

Some belonged to our mothers.

Some to their mothers.

Things handed down so many times
we couldn’t remember
who had been hurt first.

Behind us,

there was war.

A world fighting over land,
power,
control.

A world obsessed with winning,
producing,
having more.

A world that had somehow forgotten
what all of it was for.

And we were tired.

God, we were tired.

But we’d been through so much already
that every new explosion behind us
felt almost like—

This again?

So we adjusted the children
on our backs,

tightened our bandages,

and kept walking.

We weren’t waiting
for anyone to come save us.

We’d stopped waiting
a long time ago.

There was chaos everywhere,

but inside,

we had become very quiet.

One foot
in front of the other.

Step.

Breathe.

Step.

Breathe.

Maybe that’s what happens
when you’ve survived enough.

You stop fighting every battle.

You learn what deserves
your energy.

And we knew exactly
where ours belonged.

Get the children to the land.

Everything else
was noise.

So we walked.

Bruised knees.
Bloody feet.
Tear-stained faces.

Every once in a while,
one mother would look at another

and give her a nod.

I know.

Me too.

Keep going.

If one of us stumbled,
another reached out.

If someone needed water,
we passed it down.

If a mother couldn’t carry something anymore,
someone else carried it for a while.

No speeches.

No medals.

No one watching.

Most of our battles
had always happened that way.

In kitchens.

In bedrooms.

In cars.

At two in the morning
with a child asleep beside us.

Breaking patterns
no one else knew existed.

Choosing differently.

Again
and again
and again.

No one had called us warriors.

Maybe because we weren’t
what warriors were supposed to look like.

We weren’t marching toward a battle.

We were walking away from one.

We didn’t want to conquer anything.

We didn’t want anyone beneath us.

We weren’t interested in glory.

We wanted peace.

We wanted somewhere safe
to raise our children.

And somehow,

that had required
the fight of our lives.

Then I saw my daughter.

It was as though
the whole vision zoomed in on her.

She was on my back
like a little fairy.

Light.

Unburdened.

Her hair blowing behind her,
her legs bouncing against my sides.

She was laughing.

Actually laughing.

As though crossing a desert
were some kind of adventure.

As though she already knew
how the story ended.

She reached her little hands
over my shoulders

and sprinkled something over me.

Fairy dust, maybe.

Magic.

Whatever it was,

for a moment
I forgot how tired I was.

Keep going, Mama.

I carried her body.

She carried my spirit.

I protected her
from the weight of the world,

and somehow,

she protected me
from becoming hardened by it.

She made me laugh.

She made me believe.

She reminded me
there was still magic here,

even in the middle
of all this rubble.

And then I looked around.

All the children were like this.

Light.

Laughing.

Unwounded.

The mothers were covered
in bandages.

The children weren’t.

And suddenly,

I understood.

That was the whole point.

We carried the burdens.

Not them.

We carried the childhood wounds.

The shame.

The silence.

The fear.

The things our mothers couldn’t heal
and their mothers couldn’t heal.

We carried them
as far as they would ever go.

No further.

Maybe that’s what made us warriors.

Not that we knew how to fight.

We knew what was worth protecting.

And these children—

these ridiculous,
laughing,
fairy children—

were worth crossing
every desert for.

There were women ahead of us.

Women who had already crossed
this part of the desert.

Some were older.

Some still carried scars.

Some had children
running beside them now.

They stood at the edge
of something green,

waving us forward.

Come.

Keep going.

You’re almost here.

And finally,

we could see the land.

Green breaking through
the horizon.

Trees.

Water.

Gardens.

Homes gathered together
instead of separated.

Children moving freely
from one open door
to another.

Food passed between tables.

Someone cooking.

Someone teaching.

Someone making music.

A tired mother asleep beneath a tree
while another woman held her baby.

No one asking her
what she had accomplished that day.

No one telling her
she had to earn her rest.

No mother doing it all.

No child disappearing
between the cracks.

Here,

care was not something
we squeezed into the hours
after the important work was done.

Care was the important work.

Families weren’t built
around productivity.

Life was built
around families.

Children first.

Community first.

Safety first.

Peace first.

People before profit.

Enough before more.

And when one child cried,

someone came.

Maybe her mother.

Maybe another mother.

Maybe a grandmother.

Maybe someone
who simply happened to be near.

But someone came.

Again.

And again.

And again.

That was the promise
of this place.

There will always be someone.

No child left alone.

No child left behind.

Because we had learned
what can happen
when a child reaches out

and finds no one there.

How a wound can become a hunger.

How a hunger can spend a lifetime
looking for somewhere to belong.

How pain, unattended,
can travel.

So we decided
it would stop here.

Not because our children
would never hurt.

Not because this world
would be perfect.

But because they would never
have to hurt alone.

And years later,

our children would read
about the old world
in books.

They would learn
that there was once a time

when families spent
most of their waking hours apart.

When mothers left their children
before the sun came up
because survival required it.

When children were raised
according to clocks

and adults measured their worth
by how much they produced.

When people accumulated things
while starving for time.

When care was undervalued.

When women had to prove
the importance of work
that had always held
the world together.

Our children would stare
at the pages,

horrified and fascinated,

the way we once read
about strange things humans
had believed were normal.

You lived like that?

And we would look at one another.

The mothers.

Older now.

Our bandages long gone,

our scars still faintly visible.

And we would nod.

Yes.

We did.

We would keep the books.

We would tell them everything.

Because forgetting
is how old worlds
find their way back.

They would know the history.

They would understand
what happened before them.

But history
would feel like history.

Not inheritance.

They would inherit the story.

They would not inherit the wound.

And maybe that
would be our greatest victory.

Not defeating anyone.

Not standing over
some conquered world.

Not being crowned.

Just this:

Our children climbing down
from our backs

and running.

Bare feet through the grass.

Laughing.

Free.

The mothers standing behind them,

exhausted,

scarred,

looking at one another like—

Holy shit.

We made it.

And finally,

we could put
our weapons down.

Maybe I would sit beneath a tree.

Maybe my little fairy
would run back,

put a flower in my hair,

and disappear laughing
into the field again.

And I would watch her go.

She would know
where we came from.

But she would never remember
living there.

She would know
what wounded us.

But she wouldn’t spend
her life healing from it.

The old world
would be something
her mother told her about.

And this—

the trees,

the mothers,

the children,

the open doors,

the hands reaching
for one another—

would simply be

home.

(Thanks for reading! If this stirred something up for you, I’d love to hear what came up. Come tell me in the comments. <3)

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(Listen to this essay in my own voice above.)

At drop-off one morning at nature school, the children were gathered near the edge of the parking lot, greeting one another before heading into the park.

Violet looked up, spotted Emma, and said,

“Emma! I missed you.”

Then she gave her the biggest hug.

I smiled because it wasn’t unusual.

If Emma misses school, one of her friends will usually ask where she is. Her best friends are always asking for playdates. At the end of the day, they’ll often exchange big bear hugs before heading home. Watching them, I’m reminded that even at five years old, friendships can run surprisingly deep.

My husband had asked me recently what I thought Emma would be when she grew up.

I don’t know.

The last time I asked her, she wanted to be a baker. At various points, she’s also wanted to be a veterinarian and a rock star. Right now, if I had to place a bet, maybe baker-slash-entrepreneur.

But she’s five.

We’ll see.

And then I started wondering if we’ve been asking the wrong question.

The question assumes that a child’s contribution is waiting somewhere in the future. That their meaningful life begins once they have a career, a title, or a paycheck.

Yet there was my daughter, five years old, already changing the emotional landscape around her.

She doesn’t have a résumé.

She doesn’t have a profession.

She doesn’t have a single accomplishment society would celebrate.

But she already has a friend who misses her.

School can feel like a big place when you’re little. You’re away from your parents, surrounded by new experiences, trying to figure out where you belong. Having someone who’s genuinely excited to see you each morning matters. Having a familiar face—someone who asks where you’ve been, wants to play with you, or wraps you in a bear hug before heading home—matters.

Those moments don’t make headlines.

They don’t earn promotions.

They don’t appear on college applications.

But they shape the world all the same.

A few days later, I watched an interview with Emily Blunt. She was asked who had transformed her life the most. You might expect her to say her husband, John Krasinski. Instead, she said it was her children.

That answer stayed with me.

Children don’t usually transform us because they’re trying to. They’re just being who they are. And somehow, in the process of loving them, they quietly rearrange the way we see the world.

They certainly have for me.

When I was younger, I thought success looked like a big career.

I don’t know if that was unique to my generation, but I know I wasn’t alone. We learned to dream in job titles. We imagined that one day we’d finally arrive—that we’d become someone.

Even now, one of the first questions we ask a stranger is:

“So, what do you do?”

It’s a practical question. But I’ve started wondering if it’s also an incomplete one.

A career tells me how someone earns a living.

It doesn’t tell me what lights them up.

It doesn’t tell me what they’re curious about.

It doesn’t tell me what they love doing when nobody is paying them to do it.

It doesn’t tell me whether they’re the kind of person who checks in when you’re struggling, makes everyone feel welcome, remembers the little things, or gives the best hugs.

It doesn’t really tell me who they are.

Maybe better questions are:

What lights you up?

What are you passionate about?

What are you curious about lately?

What kind of person do you want to be in this world?

Those questions seem to get closer to the human being underneath all the titles.

And maybe that’s part of what motherhood has changed in me.

These days, when I imagine Emma’s future, I honestly don’t spend much time wondering whether she’ll become a baker, a veterinarian, a rock star—or some combination of all three.

Sure, I hope she discovers her gifts. I hope she gets to cultivate them and share them. I hope whatever work she chooses brings her joy and allows her to contribute something meaningful to her community.

But more than anything, I wonder who she’ll be.

Will she be happy?

Will she know peace?

Will she stay curious?

Will she be kind?

Will she be the kind of person people are genuinely happy to see?

Those qualities may never earn awards.

But they might be the ones that matter most.

And maybe this isn’t just true for children.

Maybe it’s true for us, too.

Maybe we’ve spent too much of our lives believing that our real life starts after the next milestone.

After the degree.

The promotion.

The business.

The book.

The house.

The version of ourselves we’ve been chasing.

As if we’re all still waiting to become someone.

But what if we already are?

What if our influence isn’t something waiting for us at some imaginary threshold of adulthood, success, or achievement?

What if it’s happening right now?

In the way we greet someone.

In the way we make a friend feel safe.

In the way we show up for our families.

In the way we create, comfort, listen, laugh, include, love.

Maybe a meaningful life isn’t something we eventually arrive at.

Maybe we’re living it.

Watching Violet hug Emma that morning, I realized my daughter isn’t waiting to become someone who matters.

She already is.

And maybe the same has been true of us all along.

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(Listen to this essay in my own voice above.)

Lately, I’ve been noticing something.

Human beings are kind of adorable.

I don’t mean all the time, and I don’t mean everyone. Life has taught me that boundaries matter. Some people are meant to be loved from a distance.

But the people I encounter in my little corner of the world…

They’re pretty wonderful.

I used to think of school drop-off as another thing to check off my list.

Get there on time.

Remember the water bottle.

Make sure the lunch made it into the backpack.

I’m not exactly a morning person.

Meanwhile, everyone else somehow seems fully awake, greeting each other with, “Buenos días!” and hugs.

It took me a while to realize I wasn’t just dropping my daughter off at school.

I was arriving at a little community.

One of Emma’s teachers might stop me to tell me something funny she said that morning.

Another hands me a craft she spent all day making.

Sometimes they’ll let me know she got a little boo-boo so I won’t be surprised when I see the Band-Aid.

They’re tiny updates.

But they never feel tiny to me.

They have a classroom full of children, yet they still remember something about mine.

They took the time to notice her.

As a mom, that means everything.

On Saturdays, I wander through the farmers market.

There’s an older gentleman who plays the xylophone.

He wears the same little hat, the same glasses, and somehow manages to make pop songs sound nostalgic.

I always clap.

Some people do.

Some people don’t.

I just like him to know someone was listening.

One of the vendors is from Tokyo.

Years ago, I lived in Kyoto, so every now and then we’ll talk about Japan.

Each week I seem to learn one small thing about them.

Nothing life-changing.

Just enough that, over time, they stop feeling like strangers.

The other day my chiropractor’s fiancée showed me videos from their trip to Italy.

Somewhere between admiring the little streets, laughing about how charming the Italian men were, and hearing about a glassblowing class, I realized I had completely forgotten why I’d walked in there in the first place.

I came for an adjustment.

I left having shared a conversation.

Those moments have started changing the way I move through the world.

I don’t think I need more best friends.

I don’t even think I need to put myself out there more.

I just don’t have to rush every interaction.

It’s okay to stay five extra minutes after pickup.

It’s okay to ask someone how their week has been—and actually care about the answer.

It’s okay to applaud the musician.

It’s okay to let familiar faces become part of the rhythm of your life.

Not everyone has to become part of your inner circle.

Sometimes it’s enough just to appreciate them.

To admire them a little.

To quietly wish them well.

Emma reminds me of this every day.

The other day I called her my little love bucket because that’s exactly what she is.

She’ll look at me completely out of nowhere and say,

“I love you.”

Five minutes later…

“I love you.”

Then again.

“I just love you.”

She never seems to get tired of saying it.

And somehow…

I never get tired of hearing it.

Sometimes I wonder why she says it so much.

Then I smile.

Maybe the universe is catching me up on all the “I love yous” I didn’t hear enough when I was little.

Maybe they were always meant to find me.

Just a little later.

Watching Emma has softened something in me.

Children seem to move through the world assuming people are worth smiling at.

Worth waving to.

Worth talking to.

Somewhere along the way, many of us lose a little bit of that.

We get hurt.

We get busy.

We build walls that once protected us…

and then forget to ask whether we still need them.

I’m not trying to become friends with everyone.

I’m just trying to stay open.

Open to a conversation.

Open to learning someone’s name.

Open to noticing what’s quietly beautiful about the people I already see every week.

Because the older I get, the more I think a good life isn’t only built by our closest relationships.

It’s also built by the familiar faces.

The teacher who remembers your child.

The musician who keeps showing up.

The vendor who remembers where you lived.

The mom you always end up talking to after pickup.

The people who slowly become part of the landscape of your life.

Maybe that’s what community is.

Not something you find.

Something that quietly grows while you’re busy living.

And maybe that’s why I’ve become so sentimental lately.

Because when I really pay attention…

human beings are kind of adorable.

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Prefer listening? I’ve included an audio reading of this essay above.

Earlier that evening, before I tucked my daughter into bed, I made the mistake of opening Instagram.

Within minutes, I’d fallen into a familiar spiral.

One video warned that artificial intelligence was consuming enormous amounts of energy and water. Another questioned the ingredients in everyday products. Then came fast fashion, billionaires, corporations, homeschooling, politics, environmental collapse, and a dozen people who all seemed absolutely certain they knew exactly what was wrong with the world.

By the time I put my phone down, my mind was spinning.

I wanted to fact-check everything.

I wanted to know what was true, what was exaggerated, and what actually deserved my attention.

Instead, I put my phone away, read bedtime stories, tucked Emma into bed, gave her a goodnight hug, and tried to be fully present while one corner of my mind kept quietly chewing on everything I’d just seen.

After Emma fell asleep, the house finally became quiet.

Moonlight spilled through the bedroom window.

Rob knew something was bothering me.

He came in, sat beside me, and asked what was on my mind.

“I’ve been wondering if we should buy one of those emergency survival kits,” I said. “The ones with the portable water filters.”

He wasn’t worried about the same things I was.

He was thinking about earthquakes.

I was thinking about cyberattacks, artificial intelligence, and the uncomfortable realization that I didn’t know enough to separate legitimate concerns from fear amplified by social media.

We were both trying, in our own way, to protect the same little girl sleeping down the hall.

At one point, we started talking about worst-case scenarios.

I remember thinking, Is this really what parents are supposed to be worrying about while raising a five-year-old?

The conversation didn’t settle my mind.

It couldn’t.

The world still felt impossibly complicated.

Before I fell asleep, I did what I always do when my thoughts become louder than the room around me.

I closed my eyes.

I breathed slowly.

I scanned my body from head to toe.

I am safe, I whispered.

Then I let myself dream.

For years, I’ve had a recurring dream that I’m wandering through endless staircases and hallways, trying to find my way out. Every turn leads to another obstacle. Another dead end. I wake up feeling like I’m trapped inside a maze I never chose to enter.

But this time something was different.

Instead of searching for another staircase, I started moving what was blocking my path.

Heavy equipment.

Boxes.

Obstacles that had always seemed impossible to move.

One by one, I cleared them away.

On the other side were my husband, my daughter, and water stretching quietly into the distance.

An oasis.

When I woke up, I couldn’t stop thinking about how different that dream had felt.

For the first time, I wasn’t looking for an escape.

I was creating one.

The following night I had another dream.

I was riding in my husband’s car.

No one was driving.

The car was steering itself toward the edge of a cliff.

For a moment, I simply watched.

Then I reached for the wheel.

I hit the brakes.

I turned the car around.

I parked safely.

When I woke up, one thought stayed with me.

We don’t have to drive off the cliff.

I don’t know what dreams mean.

I only know what they reminded me of.

The world may have momentum, but that doesn’t mean I’m powerless inside it.

Lately, that’s become increasingly difficult to remember.

Every time I open social media, someone is absolutely certain.

This technology will save us.

That technology will destroy us.

These people are the problem.

Those people are the solution.

The louder the certainty, the faster it spreads.

I don’t think the world works that way.

The older I get, the less interested I become in dividing humanity into heroes and villains.

Some people undoubtedly make selfish choices. Some knowingly exploit others. But I also think most people are trying to do the best they can with the knowledge they have, the incentives around them, and the lives they’ve lived.

Ten years ago, I asked different questions than I do today.

I ate differently.

I bought different things.

I rarely wondered where products came from, how they were made, or what invisible costs they carried.

Not because I didn’t care.

Because I didn’t know.

You don’t know until you know.

Awareness doesn’t arrive all at once.

It arrives through conversations.

Books.

Mistakes.

Parenthood.

Illness.

Curiosity.

Time.

It arrives one question at a time.

Maybe that’s why shame has never felt like a very useful teacher.

Curiosity has.

The world is astonishingly complex.

Complex enough to make your brain spin.

Complex enough to convince you that you should either understand everything or give up trying.

I don’t think either is the answer.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I come back to one question.

What do I actually have the power over?

I can keep learning.

I can change my mind when I discover better information.

I can support businesses and people whose values align with mine whenever I’m able.

I can consume more thoughtfully than I did yesterday.

I can admit when I don’t know.

I can choose curiosity over certainty.

Most importantly, I can raise my daughter to ask thoughtful questions instead of accepting easy answers.

I can’t control every corporation.

I can’t predict every technological breakthrough.

I can’t solve every environmental problem.

I can’t carry the weight of the whole world.

But I can refuse to live unconsciously.

I can refuse to let fear make every decision for me.

I can remember that while I may not control the direction of history, I still have a hand on my own wheel.

We’ve become remarkably good at asking questions like:

How do we build it faster?

How do we make more money?

How do we produce more?

Those questions have changed the world.

But I wonder if we’ve neglected others.

Who benefits?

Who bears the cost?

Will this help people flourish?

What kind of world are we leaving for our children’s children?

What kind of ancestors do we hope to become?

Maybe the future doesn’t belong to the people who have all the answers.

Maybe it belongs to the people who remain curious enough to keep asking meaningful questions.

Tomorrow morning Emma will wake up with another impossible question.

Children always do.

This time, I hope I don’t rush to answer it.

I hope we stay curious together.

Because maybe I don’t need to save the world before bed.

Maybe I just need to raise one curious little girl, make one thoughtful choice, care well for the people around me, and trust that change has always traveled that way.

The world has always been complicated.

It probably always will be.

But we don’t have to surrender the wheel.

We can pause.

We can think.

We can learn.

We can care.

And together, one conscious choice at a time, we can help steer the future in a better direction.

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Most evenings, after my husband gets home, I take a quick walk around the block before bed.

It’s nothing profound. Just a few minutes to clear my head, move my body, and transition out of the day.

That night, Emma didn’t want me to go.

First she begged me to stay.

Then she begged to come with me.

Her dad thought it was getting too close to bedtime, but I wasn’t in the mood to fight about it.

So the three of us walked around the block together.

The light was fading. The air was cooling. Somewhere along the way, Emma picked up a dandelion.

The kind children make wishes on.

She held it carefully in her hand and said something she has said more than once.

“I wish my family could live forever.”

I felt the familiar ache in my chest.

Not because she was wrong.

But because she had somehow stumbled onto one of the oldest truths about being human:

When we love something deeply, we don’t want it to end.

Earlier that day, Emma and I had been working in our mommy-daughter journal.

We had opened to a coloring page called You Make Me Happy When Skies Are Gray.

We spread out our markers and started coloring side by side.

There wasn’t a big conversation. We were simply enjoying the quiet together.

After a few minutes, Emma looked up from her page.

“I have a tear in my eye,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I love you so much.”

We hugged.

And for a moment, I was struck by how extraordinary it is that a five-year-old could feel something so tender.

Later that evening, after she had fallen asleep, I lowered myself into a hot bath.

The house was finally quiet.

Steam softened the mirror.

And my mind did what it often does.

It wandered.

It revisited old choices.

It invented alternate futures.

It asked questions with no answers.

Lately, these thoughts have been visiting me more often.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve reached an age where the future feels shorter than the past.

Or perhaps it’s because every long life eventually enters seasons that ask difficult questions.

Not necessarily crises.

Just moments of reflection.

Moments when you take inventory.

The roads taken.

The roads abandoned.

The people you became.

And the people you never did.

Sometimes I think my friends are alternate versions of me.

One stayed single and built a life entirely on her own terms.

One got divorced and started over.

One found love again and built a second life.

One poured herself into her career and achieved things I occasionally wonder if I would have pursued.

When I look at them, I can almost see the lives I might have lived.

Perhaps they see some of their unlived lives reflected in mine, too.

The older I get, the less convinced I am that anyone escaped the trade-offs.

Over the years, friends have shared pieces of their lives with me.

What I’ve learned is that no life is as simple as it appears from the outside.

The friend with freedom sometimes longs for partnership.

The friend with partnership sometimes longs for freedom.

The person with the thriving career wonders about the family they never built.

The parent wonders about the roads they never explored.

Even our closest friends carry private griefs.

Sacrifices they barely admit to themselves, let alone anyone else.

It’s rare that anyone knows the full story of another human being.

Sometimes I wonder about my own unlived lives.

What if I had never left New York?

What if I had stayed where it was familiar and safe?

What if I had focused entirely on my creative work?

Would I have been happier?

The funny thing is, I don’t think so.

Not completely.

Because while I can imagine the freedom, the accomplishments, and the adventures, I can also imagine the longing.

I suspect I would have spent years wondering what it might have been like to build a family.

The truth is, I did get many of the adventures.

At twenty-three, I left New York and moved across the country without a job waiting for me.

I lived in Japan.

I lived in London.

I traveled.

I built careers as a graphic designer, photographer, and writer.

I chased ideas.

I chased stories.

I chased versions of myself.

And still, like everyone else, I sometimes wonder about the lives I didn’t choose.

When these thoughts arise, I find myself imagining something strange.

I like to believe that before I came to Earth, I was handed a deck of cards.

Each card contained a different life.

One held the version of me who never left home.

One held the version who never married.

One held the version who devoted herself entirely to her work.

One held the version who traveled endlessly.

One held the version who became a mother.

Thousands of cards.

Thousands of possible lives.

I imagine turning them over one by one.

This one comes with freedom and loneliness.

This one comes with adventure and uncertainty.

This one comes with achievement and sacrifice.

This one comes with love and heartbreak.

None of them are easy.

None of them are perfect.

Each asks for something in return.

Maybe I sat there for what felt like an eternity, weighing every gain and every loss.

Maybe I knew exactly what each life would cost.

The uncertainty.

The disappointments.

The lessons I would spend decades trying to understand.

And maybe I chose this one anyway.

Not because it was the easiest card.

But because it contained something my soul wanted to experience.

Or perhaps someone.

When Emma says she wishes our family could live forever, part of me understands exactly what she means.

Before becoming a mother, I thought I had made my peace with impermanence. Emma complicated that.

Another part of me knows that life has never worked that way.

Life is called a cycle for a reason.

Flowers bloom and fade.

Trees fall and become soil.

Seasons arrive and leave.

Everything eventually changes form.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a song that makes me cry almost every time I hear it.

I’ve never even seen the movie it came from, but one lyric speaks of a place where nothing is impossible.

For some reason, whenever I hear it, I think of Emma.

Maybe because love asks us to hold two seemingly impossible truths at once:

That nothing lasts forever.

And that somehow love does.

I can’t prove that souls travel together through lifetimes.

I only know that when I look at Emma, some part of me feels as though I’ve known her much longer than five years.

Maybe that’s why I tell her stories.

Stories that remind us that love leaves traces behind.

Stories that help us make peace with mysteries we can’t solve.

Maybe they’re just stories.

Or maybe they’re another way of saying what I already know in my bones.

That the people we love change us forever.

That even when a season ends, something remains.

A song.

A story.

A photograph.

A memory.

A way of laughing.

A way of seeing the world.

Love has a way of changing shape, but never quite disappearing.

Maybe that’s why I find the deck comforting.

Not because I know it’s true.

Maybe it’s simply a story that helps me make peace with uncertainty.

A way of soothing the part of me that still wonders about the roads not taken.

But when I imagine all those cards spread out before me—all those possible futures, all those different lives—I don’t find myself searching for the perfect one anymore.

I find myself looking for the card with the dandelion.

The card with the little girl who gets tears in her eyes because she loves me.

The card with bedtime snuggles, dance parties in the car, picnic blankets in the park, beach playdates, dandelion wishes, and the little voice that still calls me, “Mama.”

The card that contains both heartbreak and joy.

The card that asks a lot from me.

The card that has taught me more about love than any other.

And standing there beside Emma as she held her dandelion and wished our family could live forever, I found myself strangely comforted.

Because of all the things I don’t know about the lives I didn’t choose, there is one thing I know about this one.

Knowing everything I know now—the joy, the uncertainty, the heartbreak, the beauty—I would still choose the card with her on it.

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A few weeks ago, I took my daughter to a Padres game for a school field trip.

It was one of those mornings that felt rushed from the start. Before I knew it, I was standing in the sun surrounded by a sea of parents, teachers, and children when something suddenly felt off.

My vision began to narrow.

The world grew distant.

I remember thinking:

Oh no. I’m going to faint.

I’ve experienced low blood pressure before, so I recognized the feeling immediately. I called my husband and did the only thing that made sense at the time—I laid down on the filthy concrete.

“Don’t do that,” he said over the phone. “Homeless people pee there.”

But my options felt pretty limited.

Lay down on the disgusting ground or slam my head into the cement.

So down I went.

Medical staff checked my vitals. Everything looked normal.

A little dehydration.

A little anemia.

A little too much heat.

A rough morning.

Nothing catastrophic.

Still, it shook me.

Because being sick before children is one thing.

Being sick after children is another.

Before my daughter, illness was mostly about me.

Now every strange symptom carries a different weight.

A dizzy spell.

A heart palpitation.

An unfamiliar ache.

And suddenly your mind goes somewhere you never expected.

What if something happens to me?

That’s when the thought arrived.

I’m not allowed to die.

Of course, I know that’s not how life works.

None of us get that guarantee.

But motherhood rewrites your heart.

Somewhere deep inside, every mother understands the feeling.

Not yet.

Please not yet.

My child still needs me.

Around the same time, I watched a short video of a mother with cancer talking to her seven-year-old daughter.

She spoke with hope. She was pursuing treatment and planning for a long future. But beneath her words was a truth neither of them could control.

None of us know.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward.

Because for some families, these conversations aren’t philosophical.

They’re reality.

And suddenly my own fears felt different.

Not smaller.

Just clearer.

I am still here.

Breathing.

Walking.

Laughing.

Making plans.

Watching my daughter grow.

And maybe that’s when the prayer arrived.

Show me magic today.

The next morning, I found myself sitting beneath a Golden Medallion Tree at the farmers market.

Its fern-like branches were heavy with yellow blossoms, as though sunlight itself had decided to bloom.

Nearby, children chased bubbles through the air.

Families wandered between vendor stalls.

People I recognized smiled and waved.

In my hand was a mango iced tea so delicious that, for a moment, it felt like the greatest thing I’d ever tasted.

Not because it was extraordinary.

Because I was paying attention.

Then I noticed a swallowtail butterfly drifting through the branches overhead.

Its yellow wings flashed against the blossoms before disappearing into the canopy.

I watched it longer than I normally would.

As if it had arrived carrying a message.

The truth is that most days don’t look extraordinary.

Most days are school drop-offs and pickups.

Breakfasts and lunches.

Laundry and dishes.

Bath time and bedtime.

A hundred small responsibilities repeated often enough that life can begin to feel like a checklist.

And if I’m not careful, I start measuring my days by what I accomplished.

What I finished.

What I crossed off.

But sitting beneath that tree, watching that butterfly move through the blossoms, I began to wonder if I’ve been measuring the wrong things.

Maybe a life isn’t measured by accomplishments.

Maybe it’s measured by moments.

The morning snuggle.

The conversation in the car.

The way your five-year-old tells you about her friendships as if they are matters of international importance.

The warm smile from someone who knows your name.

The taste of cold mango tea on a warm afternoon.

The way a blooming tree stops you in your tracks.

The magic hidden inside an ordinary day.

That morning, my daughter surprised me with heart-shaped pancakes she had made with her dad.

The night before, she asked me to brush her teeth because, in her words, “Daddy does it too hard.”

Later, she appeared in my doorway for what has become our nightly ritual.

“Nighttime hug.”

Then came the familiar request.

“Please come to my room.”

A few minutes later she was asleep in my lap.

I brushed the hair from her face and studied her for a moment.

Sometimes I swear she changes overnight.

A little taller.

A little older.

A little less baby.

A little more girl.

One day she won’t ask me to put her to bed.

One day she won’t need me to stay until she falls asleep.

One day she’ll build a life entirely her own.

And that’s exactly what I want for her.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for a few more years of nighttime hugs first.

As I sat there, feeling the weight of her against my chest, I realized something.

This is the life.

Not someday.

Not after I solve my health concerns.

Not after I write the book.

Not after I release the music.

Not after I figure everything out.

This.

The nighttime hug.

The heart-shaped pancakes.

The butterfly drifting through yellow blossoms.

This is the life I keep thinking is waiting somewhere in the future.

I think so much of life is spent waiting.

Waiting until we’re healthier.

Waiting until we’re less busy.

Waiting until we’ve finally arrived at the version of life we’ve imagined.

As though joy is something waiting for us down the road.

But what if we’ve been looking in the wrong place?

What if the beauty isn’t later?

What if the beauty is now?

I’ve been thinking about butterflies ever since.

Only a small percentage survive the journey from egg to butterfly.

Many never hatch.

Many never emerge.

And yet, somehow, some do.

I found myself wondering whether the butterfly knew how brief its life might be.

Then I realized that was probably a very human question.

The butterfly wasn’t counting.

It was flying.

I am standing on a spinning blue planet hurtling through space.

A planet orbiting an ordinary star.

And somehow, on this tiny speck suspended in the cosmos, Golden Medallion Trees bloom.

Swallowtail butterflies emerge from cocoons.

Little girls ask for one more bedtime hug.

Heart-shaped pancakes appear on Saturday mornings.

Mango iced tea exists.

If I sit with it long enough, it all begins to feel almost impossible to comprehend.

The miracle isn’t simply that life exists.

The miracle is that we get to experience it.

And every once in a while, if we’re paying attention, something wakes us up.

A butterfly.

A blooming tree.

A health scare.

A child’s laughter.

A moment of wonder.

And for a brief moment, we remember.

The butterfly says:

Life is brief.

Fly anyway.

The Golden Medallion Tree says:

Beauty is temporary.

Bloom anyway.

And life says:

No day is promised.

Love anyway.

Notice anyway.

Live anyway.

So today I will stop waiting.

I will stop postponing my joy.

I will stop measuring my life by schedules, accomplishments, and someday.

Instead, I will measure it by moments.

A swallowtail drifting through yellow blossoms.

Heart-shaped pancakes on a Saturday morning.

A child asking for one more bedtime hug.

The magic hidden inside an ordinary day.

Because no day is promised.

But today is here.

And today is a gift.

Show me magic today.

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I’ve started to realize something I think I’ve known all along: the universe feels less like a machine and more like a child who grew into a mother.

I don’t mean this literally. I mean it as a way of understanding the world—a cosmology that braids modern physics with intuition, ancient myth with emotional intelligence, and the logic of motherhood with the logic of creation.

Because when I look at the night sky, or read about stars, or sit with the idea of the Big Bang, I don’t see an explosion. I see potential. I see unfolding. I see a universe learning itself into form.

And the more I pay attention, the more I recognize the same developmental arc in the cosmos that I see in myself—and in my daughter.

Maybe the universe began the way a child begins: as pure potential.

People talk about the Big Bang as if it were violent, catastrophic, instantaneous. But modern cosmology quietly agrees on one thing: we don’t actually know what happened “before.” Our physics breaks down at that point.

So I imagine the early universe the way I imagine a newborn—not empty, but full of possibility. Not chaotic, but unintegrated. Not wise, but waiting to unfold.

A baby isn’t born good or bad. They are born raw, with everything inside them still undifferentiated. All possibility, no understanding yet.

The universe, I think, may have been the same.

Consciousness came later—the way awareness grows in a child.

When we describe the early universe—fire, pressure, collisions—we often interpret it emotionally. We call it violent. Chaotic. Destructive.

But I no longer believe chaos and evil are the same thing.

A toddler may hit without understanding. A wounded adult may lash out from fear. Parts of ourselves can behave destructively long before we understand why.

Higher consciousness is not the destruction of what frightens us. It is the understanding of it.

Shadow is not the opposite of light. Shadow is light that has not yet been integrated.

If the universe is conscious at all—and I understand that many people would disagree—it may not have begun wise. It may have grown wise.

And if I’m honest, I sometimes think creation itself resembles the creative process. An artist stares at a blank canvas with no guarantee of success. The first strokes are messy. Early drafts rarely resemble the finished work. Yet nothing beautiful is ever created without first risking imperfection.

Maybe creation requires courage before it requires mastery.

Nature doesn’t kill what is unwanted. It transforms it.

Human stories often kill their villains. Myths exile their demons. Religions divide reality into good and evil.

Nature rarely works that way.

A supernova, which looks like destruction, creates the heavy elements necessary for life. A dying star becomes a nebula—a birthplace for new stars. Fallen trees become soil. Death feeds life.

Even endings become raw material.

The universe does not seem to discard. It transforms.

Everything belongs to the larger cycle.

Everything becomes something else.

It is the most mother-like impulse I can imagine.

Stars live like mothers: long, steady, patient, generous.

Years ago, I read about one of the oldest known stars and felt unexpectedly emotional. I remember feeling grief, though I couldn’t explain why.

Now I think I understand.

Some stars—red dwarfs in particular—burn so slowly that their lifespans are measured not in millions or billions of years, but trillions. They are the quiet elders of the cosmos.

They do not blaze dramatically across the sky. They endure.

And when their lives eventually end, the material they leave behind contributes to what comes next.

Like trees returning to the earth.

Like parents leaving behind stories, memories, values, and children.

Like mothers who never fully disappear because part of them continues living in the people they loved.

Nothing truly vanishes.

Everything becomes.

Maybe the universe isn’t a judge. Maybe it’s a learner.

When I think about figures like the devil, or Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, I find myself less interested in evil than in immaturity.

Violence can be immaturity.

Fear can be immaturity.

Domination can be immaturity.

Human beings often act destructively not because they are irredeemably evil, but because they are unconscious of their wounds, fears, and motivations.

If the universe evolved from raw force into stars, planets, life, consciousness, and relationship, perhaps there is a similar pattern there too:

From instinct to order.

From reaction to understanding.

From fragmentation to connection.

From survival to love.

Maybe the universe did not begin as a wise parent.

Maybe it began as a child.

And like any child, it learned.

Love may be the highest expression of consciousness.

Many spiritual and philosophical traditions point toward a similar idea: as consciousness expands, so does compassion.

A child grows into empathy.

A person heals and becomes more understanding.

A culture learns to widen its circle of belonging.

A nervous system learns safety and becomes capable of connection.

Love, in this sense, is not merely an emotion. It is a form of intelligence.

Before my daughter was born, I often experienced life as something to endure. After she arrived, something shifted.

I suddenly understood continuity.

Legacy.

Meaning.

I wanted to see her story unfold.

And for the first time, I began to understand why creation exists at all.

Love wants expression.

Love wants form.

Love wants to witness itself.

Perhaps consciousness evolves toward love because love is what consciousness looks like when it fully recognizes itself in another.

We are how the universe remembers what it learned.

When I look at images of nebulae—the vast clouds of gas and dust formed from dying stars—I sometimes joke, “Look, it’s Mom.”

It sounds naïve.

But perhaps it isn’t.

Ancient cultures saw gods in the sky. Modern science sees stellar nurseries. Both are attempts to make meaning from the same reality.

What moves me is not whether the universe is literally conscious. It is the possibility that consciousness itself emerged from the universe—and therefore carries some reflection of its story.

Maybe we are not separate from the cosmos at all.

Maybe we are the part of it that became reflective.

The part that can wonder.

The part that can remember.

The part that can love.

Conclusion

Maybe the universe is not a distant god, a cold machine, or a perfect being directing events from above.

Maybe it is something stranger and more intimate.

Maybe it is a process of becoming.

A movement from potential into form.

From unconsciousness into awareness.

From fragmentation into relationship.

From fear into understanding.

From isolation into love.

And maybe that is why the story of the cosmos feels so familiar.

Because it is also the story of a child growing up.

The story of a mother loving her daughter.

The story of a human life learning, again and again, how to belong.

If that is true, then we are not separate from the universe at all.

We are one of the ways it learns to know itself.

And one of the ways it learns to love.

_________________________________

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For editorial inquiries, writing collaborations, podcast invitations, speaking opportunities, or creative partnerships:

Lisa.Ormsby@gmail.com

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I think about my grandmother all the time.

It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that I began to understand what she actually carried.

This essay is for her.

My grandmother raised seven children on her own during and after the Korean War.

Her husband died young. One of her children died of starvation. There was no insurance, no social safety net, no margin for error. She sold vegetables to survive. She kept going.

She is not in any history book. No monument bears her name. And yet entire lives—including mine—exist because she endured.

When we talk about women’s power today, we often frame it as something newly discovered: women entering leadership, women breaking glass ceilings, women finally being recognized. But women have always held societies together. What’s new is whether we are willing to see it.

My grandmother lived through war, hunger, and profound loss. She survived the death of a toddler—an unimaginable grief—and still raised her remaining children alone. She did this in a time when women’s labor was expected but rarely named, when survival itself was a full-time job, and when resilience was not celebrated so much as assumed.

For civilians in South Korea, the war meant constant displacement, food shortages, and fear. Cities and villages changed hands repeatedly. Supply chains collapsed. Starvation was common, particularly among children and widows. With no meaningful social safety net, survival depended less on institutions than on women’s unpaid labor—finding food, keeping families together, and holding life intact amid chaos.

My father was born in the spring of 1952, in the middle of the war.

She was not exceptional because she was rare. She was exceptional because she was common.

Entire generations were carried forward by women like her—women who functioned as the original social safety nets, food systems, childcare networks, and emotional anchors in societies fractured by conflict and poverty. Their labor was unpaid, undocumented, and largely invisible. But without it, there would have been no recovery.

I remember my grandmother once looking at her reflection and remarking, almost casually, about how much her face had changed—how many lines it carried now. At the time, I didn’t know how to respond. Now I do. Life happened. War happened. Children happened. Survival happened. Those lines were not loss; they were record. Today, I would call her a badass. She would have had no idea what I meant—but she would have understood the feeling.

Only now do I realize how much physical pain she must have lived with. I remember the rows of pill organizers, the dentures she wore for as long as I knew her, the way none of it was ever explained. At the time, I thought of it simply as old age. Now, living in my own body—managing pain, fatigue, and the daily demands of motherhood—I understand it differently. Her strength was not the absence of pain. It was her ability to live fully alongside it.

I also remember my grandmother spoon-feeding me long after I was capable of feeding myself. She would sit with my brother and me while we watched television, carefully lifting food to our mouths, smiling as we ate. At the time, it felt like indulgence. Now I understand it differently. For someone who had lived through hunger, feeding children was not just care—it was joy, relief, proof that life had continued. In her world, food was never something to waste or take for granted. Feeding us was not habit. It was love made visible.

I often wish my grandmother had been able to tell her story herself. If women like her had been given the time, permission, and framework to write their lives in their own words, their first-person accounts would be far more vivid than anything recorded down the lineage. But they didn’t have that luxury. They were too busy surviving—feeding families, holding communities together, ensuring that future generations could live with more choice than they ever had. My ability to write this now is not separate from that inheritance; it is made possible by it.

If there is heroism here, it is not singular or mythic. It is collective—lived quietly by generations of women whose labor was essential but rarely recorded.

By the time I was born, the war that shaped my grandmother’s life was long over, but the expectations placed on women remained. I watched my mother work tirelessly—raising children, contributing financially, maintaining the household—while still navigating cultural and religious norms that emphasized duty, quiet endurance, and self-sacrifice. She was not weak. She was overburdened.

As a Korean American girl growing up in the United States, I absorbed two conflicting messages at once. One culture emphasized obedience and service; the other prized independence and self-determination. Somewhere between them, I learned—without anyone explicitly saying so—that being a woman often meant doing more while being seen less.

I resisted that lesson instinctively. In my twenties, I embraced relentless independence. I traveled, worked constantly, and armored myself with productivity. I adopted strength because softness did not feel safe. Femininity was something I performed outwardly, not something I trusted inwardly.

But bodies keep score.

In my thirties, my nervous system collapsed under the weight of a life built on endurance. I slowed down not out of choice, but necessity. That reckoning forced me to reconsider what we call strength. I began to see femininity not as passivity, but as regulation—rest, nourishment, rhythm, and wisdom. A form of power that sustains rather than dominates.

Motherhood sharpened this understanding even further.

Becoming a mother made visible how much women still carry, often without recognition. Mothers are the default parents. We give birth, nurture children, manage emotional labor, and are still expected to contribute economically and socially. There are few real breaks—mentally or emotionally—and self-care is often framed as indulgence rather than necessity.

And yet women persist.

Motherhood did not make me resent women’s roles; it made me revere them. It gave me deep compassion for my own mother and for women across generations—not because of their suffering, but because of their persistence within systems that rely on them while undervaluing them.

I knew I would think about my grandmother long after she passed, but I could not fully understand the weight of what she carried while she was alive. Even the conversations we had with her then could not hold it. It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that the scale of her sacrifice came into focus—what it meant to endure for the sake of children, and then for their children, and the generations that would follow. Without her, we would not exist. Without her, my daughter would not exist.

What I’ve come to understand is that the way we frame women’s bodies—young or old, fertile or not—reveals how much we value women beyond what they provide. Even menopause, a natural transition, is often portrayed as decline. But in many ancestral cultures, post-menopausal women were respected as elders and knowledge keepers. When a woman is no longer bound to reproduction, she is no longer easily controlled. What we label as decline may actually be liberation.

We are seeing versions of this tension play out today. In South Korea, where gender inequality remains deeply entrenched, many women have opted out of marriage and motherhood altogether—not as a rejection of life, but as a refusal to sustain a system that extracts their labor while offering little dignity in return. The result is the lowest birth rate in the world. It is a quiet but powerful reminder that reproduction is not guaranteed. It is a choice—and one that depends on respect.

All of this shapes how I think about the world my daughter is inheriting.

Despite the very real challenges of our time, I do not feel despair. I feel momentum. Power is no longer concentrated solely in governments and institutions; it is decentralizing. My daughter will grow up in a world where women are CEOs, heads of state, astronauts, and decision-makers—not as anomalies, but as part of the cultural language. That visibility matters. It reshapes what girls imagine as possible long before they are asked to choose who to become.

I teach my daughter that she is powerful, that her voice matters, and that she does not need to harden herself to live fully. I want her to know that rest is not laziness, softness is not weakness, and her body is not something to overcome.

When I think about women’s power, I think of my grandmother. A woman who survived war, loss, and poverty, who raised seven children alone, who danced and sang with me as a child, and who lived into her nineties without ever being publicly recognized for what she carried.

Women like her built the world we live in.

The lie we’re told is that being a woman is a slow diminishment.

The truth is that it has always been a form of infrastructure—quiet, resilient, and essential.

If this essay reminded you of a woman who shaped your life, I would love to hear about her in the comments.

With love,

Lisa

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There’s a saying I grew up with—
that one person can’t make a difference.

I don’t know who started it,
or why it stuck,
but it feels like one of those quiet lies
that shaped how we move through the world—
smaller than we’re meant to be,
more guarded than we need to be.

Because when I look at my life,
it’s simply not true.

My life has been changed—
again and again—
by just one person.

—

My grandmother loved me
in the language of closeness.

She slept next to me
when I was scared of the dark.

She spoon-fed me
long past the age
I probably needed it.

She was the one
who said hello
when I left for school
and the one
who said hello again
when I came home.

She was there—
in the small, consistent ways
that tell a child:

you can leave the world and still have somewhere to return to.

And when the world doesn’t feel safe,
that kind of love
is everything.

—

Later, there was my husband.

I didn’t know
how to let someone in.

I had learned
how to carry everything myself—
how not to need,
how not to ask,
how not to burden anyone
with the weight of me.

And he didn’t accept that distance.

He insisted—
in his own way—
on being part of my life.

Not perfectly.
Not always gently.

But persistently.

And something in me
gave way.

I remember what it felt like
to let someone help me—

to feel, maybe for the first time,

I don’t have to do this alone.

It was a relief
that settled into my body
like exhaling
after holding my breath
for years.

—

And then, my daughter.

The one I didn’t know
I was waiting for.

She asks me questions
no one has ever asked me before.

About a scar
on my right knee—

a childhood race,
a rock,
a wound
no one really stopped
to understand.

And she asks me:

Did you have fun?
Who won?

I did.
I won.

No one had ever asked me that.

Not then.
Not in the thirty-four years
since it happened.

And something in me—
something old—
softens.

She puts a rainbow bandage
over that scar,
decades too late
and exactly on time.

And I leave it there
longer than I need to.

Because it feels like
care
arriving
through time.

—

And now I see it everywhere—

how hungry we are
to be seen like this.

Not politely.
Not casually.

But deeply.

To have someone say:

I see you.
I see who you’ve become.
I see what you’ve carried and how you’re still here.

I wrote a letter
to my best friend
for her birthday—

not just something quick,
not just something expected—

but something true.

The kind of words
we usually save
for funerals.

The kind of words
people are starving
to hear
while they’re still alive.

Because sometimes
our parents don’t have the language.
Sometimes our families don’t.

And sometimes
we are the ones
who are given the words—

not just to write,
but to witness.

Even strangers
have done this for me—

handed me small reflections
of myself
I didn’t know were visible:

You’re glowing.
You’re brilliant.

And it lands—
because sometimes
they see the light
before the people
who’ve known you forever
remember to look.

—

So no—
I don’t believe
that one person
can’t make a difference.

I think one person
can change everything.

One person
can become
the place you return to.

One person
can help you
put the weight down.

One person
can ask the question
that heals a decades-old wound.

One person
can speak a truth
that echoes
through someone’s entire life.

And maybe—

more often than we realize—

we are that person
for someone else.

—

I think we underestimate how much we matter to each other.

Who has been that one person for you? And where might you already be that for someone else?

—

If this resonated, I’d love to hear your story. These are the kinds of reflections I want more of here.

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For months I’ve been wrestling with a question I’ve never had the courage to say aloud:

Did I waste twenty years loving a man who didn’t fully see me?

It feels embarrassing to admit that fear. Part of me wonders if I duped myself—if I clung so tightly to a story I wanted to believe in that I missed the quiet unraveling underneath.

I wasn’t even looking for love when I met him. I was trying to build myself, figure out who I was. But romance arrives like weather—you can’t summon it or control it—and when it sweeps in, you surrender. And I did.

The love was real.

The companionship was real.

The family we built—our home, our daughter—was real and is still real.

But so were the blind spots.

So were the patterns neither of us understood.

So were the childhood wounds quietly choreographing our adult choices.

Before I go further, I need to name something I rarely talk about:

When this relationship began, I was twenty-three — brave on the outside, inexperienced on the inside. I had traveled the world by nineteen, studied abroad, moved across the country alone. But emotionally, I had grown up a “good Christian girl,” waiting for “the One,” believing that romance would announce itself as fate. I didn’t date much — not because no one was interested, but because I didn’t allow myself to explore. I thought love was supposed to find me fully formed. So when he said he didn’t want to be just my friend, that he wanted to be my boyfriend, I interpreted his certainty as a sign. I felt like maybe this was the moment to finally try — to let someone into my mess, my unhealed childhood, my inner world that I always knew would be complicated. I didn’t yet understand the difference between allowing myself to be chosen and consciously choosing.*

I grew up in a Korean Christian household where women were taught to serve, soften, and endure. Harmony meant silence. Love meant carrying more than your share. I learned to swallow my needs before I even understood them.

He grew up in a family where two siblings were deaf and emotional bandwidth was scarce. He learned to be the “easy one,” the child who didn’t add to the load. That survival skill followed him into adulthood: minimize conflict, retreat from emotional intensity, avoid anything that threatens stability.

Together, our wounds formed an unspoken choreography:

I spoke softly.

He didn’t hear.

I repeated.

He minimized, overwhelmed by emotion he never learned to hold.

I escalated, desperate to be understood.

He shut down to survive.

We both felt abandoned.

We both felt alone.

No one was the villain.

We were reenacting childhood without realizing it.

There were steady years, tender years, comfortable years. But life layered itself on top of us—work, exhaustion, parenting, quiet disappointments that hardened over time. We drifted, and at some point I realized I didn’t know how to bridge the distance without betraying myself.

And the truth is…I still don’t know what happens next.

I don’t know whether we’ve outgrown each other or whether we’re simply lost.

I don’t know how to hold gratitude for what we’ve had alongside grief for what we can’t seem to reach again.

My daughter interrupts my spiraling — “Mama, can you help me?” — and I return to the present. She is the best thing that came from all of this. When I look into her sparkling hazel eyes and her giant dimples, I think: If this was the only way to receive her, to know her, to experience her — maybe I would have made this so-called mistake again, consciously, even if I had a do-over.

For years, I believed the old myth that daughters repeat what they witness. That they choose men like their fathers. That they drag their childhood into adulthood without choice.

But psychology doesn’t support that.

Attachment theory, Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, and the Gottman Institute all point to something far more hopeful:

Children don’t inherit the father’s limitations.

They inherit the mother’s boundaries.

A daughter models the parent who responds to the wound — not the one who caused it.

If I stay silent, she learns silence.

If I shrink, she learns shrinking.

If I tolerate emotional invisibility, she normalizes emotional invisibility.

But if I speak?

If I honor myself?

If I stop abandoning the woman inside me?

Then she inherits something completely different.

A friend recently sent me a line from Daniel Chidiac that lodged itself in my chest:

**“Harmony doesn’t mean no conflict.

It means conflict is no longer a threat to the bond.”**

Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to understand all along — not whether love still exists between us, but whether our bond can hold truth without collapsing under it. Whether two people shaped by childhood storms can learn to stand in conflict without expecting thunder.

Because the real question isn’t whether we can avoid rupture.

It’s whether we can repair without fearing it.

Maybe the shame I feel isn’t shame at all. Maybe it’s grief.

Grief for the fantasy I hoped we’d become.

Grief for the intimacy I believed would deepen.

Grief for the girl I was at twenty-three who didn’t yet know how to choose consciously.

But grief is not regret.

Grief says: I lost something I longed for.

Regret says: I chose wrong.

I didn’t choose wrong.

I chose with the consciousness I had.

And now, with new consciousness, I get to choose again.

Those twenty years weren’t wasted. They were a classroom.

They taught me the shape of my boundaries by showing me where I misplaced them.

They taught me what emotional nourishment feels like by showing me its absence.

They taught me who I become when I love too hard — and who I become when I finally come home to myself.

And they gave me Emma.

My muse.

My mirror.

My reminder that nothing in my life was ever a mistake.

Maybe the question isn’t how to undo the past.

Maybe it wasn’t that I didn’t know the truth before. Maybe I just know how to hold it now.

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I wasn’t really sure what to post this week.

I have so many pieces,

and it was hard to choose.

And I’m a little on a time crunch—

my own creative time crunch—

trying to stay consistent and post every week.

Also… it’s my birthday tomorrow,

so if you feel like sending a little birthday love,

I’ll receive it.

But I chose this piece

because it feels like the mindset

I want to step into this year.

Just really celebrating

all the wins I already have,

all the blessings that are already here—

in a world that’s always chasing,

always wanting more,

always telling us to consume.

So thank you for being here.

At the beach,

I thought—

I’m rich.

And then it softened—

No,

we’re rich.

What took so long to see it?

The tide keeps arriving

with nothing to sell,

only everything to give.

The sun—still free.

The air—still ours.

The water—touching every shore

without asking who deserves it.

If we stayed here long enough,

with a little planning—

what would we reach for

that isn’t already here?

We have our bodies.

Our breath.

We have each other.

And even when no one is near,

we have ourselves.

Who told you

you weren’t rich?

Because as a child,

you had everything.

A paper and a pencil—enough.

Belly laughs—enough.

Throwing rocks into the water—enough.

Splashing puddles in your boots—enough.

Cuddling the ones you love—enough.

When everything

was enough.

You want to go buy something?

Do you really need

that new purse?

that new outfit?

that new thing to make you happy?

Sure—

maybe.

But don’t you also just want to sit in the sand,

feel the sun,

laugh,

doodle with your fingers,

dance in the car with your best friend?

Aren’t you already rich?

…aren’t you already rich, bitch?

People will say

you gotta work yourself to death.

Hustle till the end.

And by then—

your best days

might already be behind you.

But any billionaire—

any old billionaire—

would trade all that money

for your youth.

Not because youth is everything—

but because it’s this:

Can you still giggle?

Can you still crack a joke?

Can you still dance for no reason?

Can you give a really good bear hug?

That’s rich.

That’s real rich.

And you know this—

neuroplasticity.

Your brain learns

what you tell it.

So if you start telling yourself

you’re rich—

your mind believes it.

Your body follows.

What you repeat matters.

Because the more you notice

what you already have—

the more it starts to feel

true.

So don’t let anyone convince you

you need something outside of yourself

to feel good.

You were a child once.

You know this.

Just remember—

your joy

is the richest experience

you can have.

Don’t let anyone swipe that away from you.

Kids know this.

They find joy

in anything,

in everything.

Just go back to the basics.

And if you don’t feel it right now—

that’s okay too.

Try this.

Take your inner child on a little date.

Go to the beach.

Get ice cream.

Jump on your bed

with your favorite song on.

Be a little silly again.

And see what happens.

Maybe something shifts.

Something small.

Something you can’t really explain.

If this resonated with you,

feel free to like, comment,

or subscribe—

that would mean the world to me.

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there’s something more I should be doing—

something bigger,

something fuller.

I hear it everywhere,

feel it in the air,

like a quiet pressure

to want more.

But deep down,

I don’t.

My life is already full.

I just have to remember

to see it that way.

Yesterday—

my daughter and I went to the park,

like we always do on Fridays.

She wore her lemon dress,

blue and green with little lemons,

like something you’d wear

on the coast of Italy.

We packed our picnic blanket,

walked to the spot we like,

and picked up our usual poke bowl

from the place around the corner.

We split it—

we always split everything.

One set of chopsticks for me,

a fork for her.

Sometimes we get a coconut drink,

sometimes a strawberry Dole Whip—

yesterday, we shared one.

Sticky fingers,

sweet on our lips.

She had her activity book,

and we listened to a kid podcast—

a little lazy day hack

for a mom with a lingering cough.

And somehow,

it was enough.

Then we did ballet on the grass—

music playing softly in the background.

Just the two of us—

twirling,

laughing,

no audience.

And I felt it, so clearly—

I don’t need anything else.

Not the plans I didn’t make,

not the places I didn’t go,

not the version of me

who says yes to everything.

I’m here,

with my favorite person,

doing my favorite thing—

sitting on the earth,

letting my body soften,

letting life be simple.

She shows me this

without trying.

That joy isn’t somewhere else.

That nothing is missing.

That this—

this is the life.

And maybe

I didn’t know how to see it before.

But I do now.

Because of her.

—

Prefer to listen? The full piece is in the audio above.

New episode of Mother Universe is live.

If this resonated with you,

you can support the podcast by subscribing,

sharing it with someone you love,

or leaving a comment—I’d truly love to hear what it stirred in you.

What in your life is already full—

if you let yourself see it that way?

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Lately I’ve been thinking about how motherhood can look small from the outside while containing an entire universe within it.

This is a reflection from a recent episode of Mother Universe.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how a life can look small from the outside…

even when it contains an entire universe within it.

Sometimes I wish

a simple life

could just be enough.

Not small in meaning—

just small in appearance.

The kind of life that doesn’t come with a title,

or a headline,

or a sentence someone reads on LinkedIn

and nods at approvingly.

Just a life.

But somewhere along the way,

when we are young,

the question begins.

What will you be?

What will you become?

What will you prove?

Maybe the question

is not entirely wrong.

Part of being human

is wanting to meet

the edges of your own potential.

But the question lingers

long after childhood.

Quietly shifting shape.

Not

Who are you?

But

Is who you are enough?

The world fills with examples

of people placed on pedestals—

celebrities, founders, prodigies,

people with microphones

and blue check marks—

as if a life must be visible

to be meaningful.

But when I really look at the people around me,

I don’t see ordinary lives.

I see entire universes.

A person becomes interesting

not in their highlight reel

but in the way their strength

and vulnerability

live side by side.

The quiet struggles.

The private joys.

The strange contradictions.

Every person,

when seen in full circle,

is a story worth telling.

And yet

even knowing this

I still feel the pressure sometimes.

Because right now

my life is centered around motherhood.

And motherhood—

though enormous on the inside—

can look strangely small

from the outside.

Or maybe that’s the real paradox.

Motherhood

is big on the inside.

Not necessarily big

on the outside.

There are no promotions.

No applause.

Just the invisible work

of shaping a life.

Packing snacks.

Listening to stories.

Answering the same question

for the fiftieth time.

Holding a small hand

while a whole human being

slowly forms.

People sometimes ask,

“What else are you working on?”

As if motherhood

is a side project.

But motherhood is not

a side gig.

It is how humanity continues.

Women are portals

through which new life

enters Earth.

Right now

my season is small

on the outside.

But inside it…

a whole world

grows.

If this resonated, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What is a season in your life right now that might look small from the outside, but feels enormous on the inside?

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Episode 5: The Real Gold

Intro

Welcome to Mother Universe.

I’m Lisa Ormsby.

If you’ve been listening before, you might notice a small shift in the name. What began as Motherhood & Miracles is slowly expanding into something a little bigger — reflections on motherhood, nature, and the quiet intelligence that moves through all of life.

Today’s reflection began with a very small moment at bedtime — my daughter falling asleep on me and the quiet rhythm of her heartbeat beneath my hand.

It became a reminder of something simple that we often forget… what the real gold in life actually is.

The Real Gold

Last night my daughter fell asleep draped across me like I was her pillow.

Earlier that day she had proudly brought home two new stuffed animals after a stuffy trade with the twins at school. She carried them everywhere like they were her new best friends, excited to sleep with them that night.

But when it was time for bed, she tossed them aside and curled into me instead.

I laughed quietly to myself when I realized something.

I’m the original lovey.

For nine months my heartbeat was the background rhythm of her life. Maybe that’s what she’s still listening for when she curls into me at night.

As she drifted off, I rested my hand on her chest and felt her heartbeat beneath my palm.

It’s the simplest thing in the world, and also the most miraculous.

If you’ve ever read about human biology, it’s astonishing. The body is an automatic, impossibly complex system running quietly in the background. Our hearts beat without asking us. Our lungs breathe even when we forget. Thousands of tiny processes keep us alive every second without our control.

Sometimes I think we forget how miraculous we are.

Lately my nervous system has felt a little dysregulated, like I couldn’t quite find my center again after the noise and pace of the world around us.

So the next day I went to the place that almost always brings me back.

The ocean.

The moment my feet touched the sand, my mind quieted. Something about being there resets something deep inside me.

Before I left, I did something I sometimes do when I’m standing with the earth.

I asked Mother Nature a question.

Is there anything you want me to know?

The answer that came back felt simple.

Trust the people who are already in your life.

You don’t need to chase relationships. You don’t need to force connection. The people who are showing up right now are the ones meant to be here. Life rearranges the rest when it needs to.

Energy works that way.

The way you show up in the world quietly organizes who comes into your orbit and who drifts away.

Then I pressed my fingers into the sand and another thought came through.

This is the greatest self-care you can give yourself.

Not the skincare routines. Not the endless list of things we’re told will fix us.

Come sit with me, she seemed to say.

This is where you recharge from the inside out.

When I brushed the sand from my fingers, I noticed something glittering in the grains.

Tiny specks of gold catching the sunlight.

I held them in my palm for a moment and smiled to myself.

Of course.

Mother Nature is gold.

The real gold.

Outro

Maybe the real gold in life isn’t something we chase or collect.

Maybe it’s already here.

In the rhythm of our children’s hearts.

In the quiet wisdom of the earth beneath our feet.

And in the small moments that remind us what truly matters.

If this reflection resonated with you, one of the best ways to support this work is simply by subscribing, sharing it with someone who might enjoy it, or leaving a comment. I always love hearing what the piece stirred in you.

Thank you for being here with me.

This is Mother Universe.

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Motherhood & Miracles

Today I met a golden retriever in his front yard.

Sweetest dog. Golden. Soft face.

He had grass.

He had toys.

He had space.

But where was his person?

Probably still at work.

He kept bringing me a stick instead of the ball, like he didn’t really know what to do. Like he had forgotten how to play alone.

I told him he was a good boy.

And when I finally had to leave, he barked.

And barked.

And barked.

Not mean.

Just — please stay. I’m lonely.

It made me realize something about humans too.

You can listen to the full episode above.

Reflection

Every day humans need basics.

Water.

Sunlight.

Movement.

Connection.

Quiet.

As I walked away from that dog, I felt the barking in my own chest.

Not fully sick.

Not fully well.

It’s been about a month since I was sick.

I’m functioning.

But not restored.

There’s still that lingering cough.

That subtle ache.

That feeling of not quite being back.

And then the news.

Immigration crackdowns with ICE.

Sex trafficking files.

Things once called conspiracies.

Fact-checking the fact-checkers

until your eyes blur.

People in the cold trying to survive winter without shelter.

You’re trying to hold space for the world

while also just trying to get your digestion back on track.

I have enough.

And I still feel overwhelmed.

Both are true.

By the time I have a moment to myself, it’s dark outside.

I used to walk every evening.

Work off dinner.

Help my digestion.

Feel like myself again.

Now it feels harder.

Harder to step into the dark.

Harder to find that old rhythm.

On my way home, I hugged a tree.

I probably looked ridiculous.

But I asked her anyway —

What can you tell me?

And she said,

It’s still winter.

Winter doesn’t end because you’re tired of it.

Nature rests.

Everything rests.

Bears hibernate.

Plants go dormant.

Roots pull inward.

And we live in a world that wants to be summer 24/7.

Bright.

Productive.

On.

Even in California, where one day it’s 80 and the next it’s 50 —

winter still happens.

Inside the body.

Inside the nervous system.

Maybe I’m not behind.

Maybe I’m wintering.

Maybe the barking isn’t failure.

Maybe it’s just unmet needs.

Water.

Sunlight.

Movement.

Connection.

Rest.

Spring is not late.

It’s simply

not here yet.

A line that stayed with me

Maybe I’m not behind.

Maybe I’m wintering.

Closing

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately — even when you technically have enough — you’re not alone.

Maybe nothing is wrong with you.

Maybe your body is just in winter.

Maybe what you need isn’t more productivity…

but more of the basics.

Water.

Sunlight.

Movement.

Connection.

Rest.

Thank you for being here.

— Lisa

Motherhood & Miracles

Reflections on motherhood, meaning, and the quiet miracles of being alive.

Subscribe to receive future essays and podcast episodes.

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Episode 3

by Lisa Ormsby

Intro

Hi. Welcome back to the Motherhood & Miracles podcast.

This is Episode 3, and today’s piece is called Don’t Rush the Magic.

The other evening, my daughter and I were driving home from Grandma’s house when the sky did that thing it does sometimes — when it looks like it’s on fire. Orange. Gold. Impossible to ignore.

And in that moment, I realized how easy it is to rush through the beautiful parts of our lives. To move too fast. To miss what’s right in front of us.

So this is a poem about slowing down. About presence. About motherhood. About what happens when you choose to stay in the moment long enough to feel it.

This is Don’t Rush the Magic.

Poem

My daughter and I were driving home

from Grandma’s house

when the sun

started setting.

And I said,

Look, Emma—look.

The sky looks painted.

Orange.

Gold.

She leaned forward

in her little seat and said,

It looks like it’s on fire.

Golden.

Glowing.

And we got excited together.

Like two people

seeing the world

for the first time.

And something in me whispered—

Stay.

This is the moment.

This is the good part.

Because it’s hard,

in a world that rushes you,

to notice wonder.

But sunset doesn’t ask permission.

It just happens.

It says—

Come back to your body.

You’re alive.

And there I was,

in a messy car,

in a tired body,

in a life

I didn’t know

I’d love this much.

I didn’t know

love could feel like this.

I grew up believing in love,

but not always feeling

enough inside it.

And then the greatest love of my life

came in the form

of a four-year-old girl

who loves me

without asking me

to be anything else.

She brings me gifts every day.

Crayon hearts.

Paper rainbows.

Things held together

with glue and intention.

People call it art.

I call it evidence.

Of being seen.

Of being known.

And my body—

my body has slowed me down.

Pain.

Fatigue.

Aching mornings.

Some days motherhood

feels heavier than I imagined.

But pain has a strange wisdom.

It forces you to move gently.

To listen.

To notice.

When I can’t rush,

I see more.

The ache reminds me—

Pay attention.

Darkness has walked with me

for a long time.

But now—

now I’m in the sunshine.

Not the kind that forgets the dark.

The kind that survived it.

Motherhood didn’t save me

from life.

It saved me

back into life.

Through my daughter’s eyes

butterflies are miracles.

The ocean sparkles on purpose.

The sky keeps painting itself

just to remind us.

And I know this won’t last forever.

She won’t always shout at sunsets.

She won’t always reach for my hand.

So I’m making a vow—

Don’t look away.

Don’t rush the magic.

Don’t forget—

this moment matters.

Because when you’ve known the dark,

the light

is worth stopping for.

And right now,

my life

is golden

and glowing.

Outro

Sometimes I think the most sacred work we do isn’t changing our lives.

It’s noticing them.

It’s choosing to stay long enough to feel the miracle of what’s already here.

If this resonated with you, share it with another mother who might need the reminder.

And wherever you are today — don’t rush the magic.

I’ll see you next time.

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A bedtime spiral in cozy pajamas

It was late.

The house was quiet.

My daughter was asleep in the next room.

And instead of falling asleep,

my thoughts got big.

In this intimate, late-night reflection, I share a moment of existential fear — the kind that arrives when the world feels unstable and the lights are low — and the surprising warmth I found on the other side of it.

This episode explores:

• Bedtime spirals and moon-cycle sensitivity

• The fear that nothing is real

• Motherhood as proof that love is

• Sacred geometry, physics, and the poetry of creation

• The possibility that maybe life exists because the universe didn’t want to be alone

If you’ve ever felt small and infinite at the same time…

If you’ve ever questioned everything and still tucked your child into bed…

If you’ve ever needed the world to feel safe again —

This one is for you.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for being here.

You are not alone.

—

Motherhood & Miracles is a living journal about love, doubt, and the quiet sacredness of ordinary life.

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Show Notes

People always say a mother’s love is the greatest love in the world.

But lately, I’ve been wondering about the love that moves in the other direction — the kind of love a child has for their mother.

No one has ever loved me the way my daughter loves me.

In this episode, I reflect on:

• The fog and survival of the early years of motherhood

• What it feels like to be adored by a four-year-old

• A quiet moment at the tide pools in San Diego

• The unexpected pride that comes after simply… showing up

• And the question I still don’t have an answer to:

• Does a mother’s love outwin a child’s love — or do they complete each other?

This episode isn’t advice.

It’s not a takeaway.

It’s a moment.

A reflection on how love moves in two directions — light and weight, certainty and devotion — and what it feels like to stand inside that circle.

And maybe, if we’re lucky, what we’re building isn’t just love for today — but a relationship we get to grow into for the rest of our lives.

Listen

Press play above.

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A Note

Thank you for being here at the beginning of this.

You’re always welcome back at the table.

If this resonated, feel free to share it with someone who might need it too.

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SHOW NOTES

Episode 0 —

Welcome to the Table

Motherhood & Miracles with Lisa Ormsby

Motherhood is often shown as either beautiful or brutal — but rarely both.

In this opening episode, Lisa Ormsby shares the manifesto behind Motherhood & Miracles: a podcast devoted to the unseen, unpolished, and quietly transformative experience of becoming a mother.

This is not a how-to guide or a highlight reel.

It’s a witnessing practice.

In this episode, Lisa reflects on:

• Why motherhood is so difficult to prepare for

• The invisible emotional and physical labor of care

• The gap between advice and lived experience

• Motherhood as an initiation, not a role

• Why telling the full story of motherhood matters

• Creating space for honesty, slowness, and reflection

Most episodes in the first year are audio essays — stories written and lived by Lisa — exploring motherhood, lineage, identity, and the small miracles that shape a life.

This podcast is a place to sit with what’s real.

About the Podcast

Motherhood & Miracles explores the everyday moments of motherhood that don’t always get named — the tender, difficult, ordinary experiences that quietly change us.

Through storytelling and reflection, this podcast honors motherhood as lived, embodied work.

Closing

If this episode resonated with you, you’re welcome to subscribe, share, or simply sit with it awhile.

Thank you for listening.