Tribute Tuesday

My friends-what I wish you knew

I wish you had the confidence in yourself that I do in you. The confidence you need as a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, employee-you are amazing in all of your roles. I know you are tired, run down, pushed to the brink, but I wish you saw what I saw. I know it is not easy and I understand why.
I understand that now you are responsible for another person's life, their life.  How is it that when we were coming out of college, going to graduate school or interviewing for jobs, choosing mates, we had more confidence than we do now.  We knew we were good enough and smart enough because we were! We still are, even more so.  It seems, though, that now that we are mothers-when it comes to our children, we are so worried that we will do something wrong and screw everything up.  And of course, we will. We will say and do lots of things that we wish we would've said and done differently. Intuitively, we know this. But in reality, we are scared to death of it.
But even when it doesn't work out or "look" like we thought it should, you will be ok.  How do I know that? You are you.  You are so thoughtful, so smart, so beautiful, so unbelievably strong.  You are going to do the best you can and I've seen a lot of your best (and some of the worst, as you have seen mine :)). I have also seen you excel and do wonderful things and now that you are doing the most important thing, motherhood, I don't want you to doubt yourself. Your children love you deeply as you love them.  No matter what happens in the future, I know-because I know you, that you will excel and some things will work out and others will not.  I also know you wish you knew what the obstacles were going to be, but know this- that you will love through them.  You will not break, but you will bend, and that is ok.  Allow yourself to do that.  Allow yourself to make mistakes, allow your children to do the same.  I am not saying this because I am practicing it myself all the time, but I want to. I want to tell myself mostly positive things so I can pass inner strength along to my children. I want that for you too. Let's promise to laugh more and cry less. Let's promise to always be there for each other as we always have been. Let's continue to inspire each other.  Of course, I know all of this is so much easier said than done. I am confident though, as friends, we can get through it together. I am so grateful for that and for you.