Behind the Scenes of My Latest Piece

I am going to veer off the railroad tracks here a smidge; break with tradition if you will and post on a Sunday.

One of my pieces was published by one of my favorite sites and I just saw that it went live!

And I’m gonna share it with you. Why? I don’t really have a reason other than it makes me happy and if this space isn’t all about doing the things that bring pure and absolute joy then what am I even doing here? And also, I can’t share the link on any of my socials because, well, they don’t exist.

Now as a bonus, I figured I would share a little back story with you as to how this piece came to be.

Insert back story.

Several months ago, one of my favorite writing groups had a call for writers to submit their original pieces about motherhood for a chance to be published.

IN.A.BOOK.

Holy shit. We are talking the dream here.

I think I had approximately two months-ish warning to get this piece written but completing things in a non-procrastination fashion is not my strong suit. Especially because I was suffering with the fiercest case of writer’s block I have ever experienced. Not only could I not think of a damn thing to write but I had nothing to say.

Me.

A writer. No, fuck that, a mother. With five kids.

And I could not think of one inspirational event or endearing experience or hilarious mishap or regular anecdote to offer on the topic.

So, this piece was written the day of the deadline. In fact I submitted it roughly two hours before the midnight cutoff because I was gonna be damned if I didn’t at least try to get coherent words onto paper because this could be my big break. I mean, the bottom line is or was (let’s not get hung up on tenses today) that I just wanted to submit something because I knew if I didn’t I’d regret it.

The other bottom line: I wanted to try.

And all I could think to write about was how fucking hard this motherhood journey is and while that part is mentioned in passing it’s almost glossed over as if all the hard parts are just the occasional road bump and here I am finding them to be the actual journey (let’s also not get hung up on punctuation). Like there’s twelve difficult moments for every melt-your-heart-moment and while that somehow adds up to math that equals being worth it, it is still fucking exhausting.

And also, I cannot for the life of me think of another word for the word journey so in case you missed it, we are talking journeys here. Also, my Google thesaurus is not helping me so I already tried “googling it” if you were thinking that would broaden my vocabulary.

Wow, I took a major digression detour there, but here we are.

So anyway. I wrote an honest piece and hoped for the best and submitted my desperately trying to be uplifting but also realistic piece to the “people who determine who gets published” gods.

A couple months later I received the nicest rejection email I’ve ever received. Like I couldn’t even be upset about being rejected because they included an invitation to share this piece on their website. Because I don’t take no for an answer, I submitted it again and voila. Got a “we’ll publish it” validation email which is good for the soul, nay, ego.

Here it is.

A couple months later and it is live on the Her View From Home website.

I can’t wait to read this book, and read the words of beautiful writers sharing their extraordinary commentary on motherhood moments with the world.

Until then….

This is a piece that I stand by because this mom thing is hard. I mean like really hard.

And taxing.

And exhausting. Which I think is just another word for taxing but like I can’t say enough how tiring it is.

And confu-uuuu-sing.

And full of second guessing.

And internal battles.

And conflicting inner dialogue.

And it requires a level of brain power, patience, stamina, and certainty that I just don’t ever seem to have. And I just wanted to talk about that part because I feel like this topic has not been given enough justice.

So if any of that resonates with you, I hope you’ll click the link and enjoy the sentiment because I wrote this for all of us moms whose journeys to motherhood are happening parallel to our children’s journeys towards their self discovery and that shit is hard.

Without further ado…

What They Forget To Tell You About Motherhood.

Also, in case it wasn’t clear, click the big red letters above to go to the article.