Category: Uncategorized

Breaking the Cycle: What I Thought Was Love, Was Survival

For much of my life, I mistook endurance for strength and acts of service for love. I didn’t grow up knowing what healthy looked like, so I learned to accept pain, imbalance, and emotional labor as the cost of being in relationship. But what I’ve come to realize is this: love should not leave you depleted.

I spent years in partnerships where rest was one-sided. Where I worked multiple jobs, carried the emotional and financial weight of the day, and still came home to someone announcing they were “off to take a nap.” As if I didn’t need one too.

There was a time I thought cooking daily meals, showing up in routines, and simply staying put was enough to define love. But love isn’t duty. It isn’t simply doing the same thing over and over again. And it surely isn’t one person doing the heavy lifting while the other calls it “support.”

That wasn’t love. That was survival – dressed up as loyalty, normalized through generations, and rooted in unhealed wounds.

But I’ve grown tired of mistaking dysfunction for familiarity. I’ve decided to break the cycle.

I no longer crave partnership for the sake of not being alone. I’m not interested in proving my worth through exhaustion. I’m not impressed by performative gestures that lack emotional presence.

What I want is peace.

Peace that doesn’t require performance.

Rest that doesn’t come with guilt.

Presence that doesn’t cost me my self-worth.

This is my new tradition – and I will not apologize for choosing it.

If you’re reading this and it resonates, you’re not alone. Peace is possible—and you’re worthy of it.

From Sticker to Summit: A Mother’s Promise Fulfilled

A few years back, I picked up a sticker of the Three Sisters mountain range, three majestic peaks nestled in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, I didn’t know much about them at the time, but something about their name spoke to me. I stuck that sticker on my car, and made a wish: “I want to see them up close by the time I’m 55.”

What I didn’t say out loud then, but knew in my heart, was that those peaks reminded me of my own three daughters. Each one strong, different, rising in her own way. The Three Sisters became a symbol of hope, strength, and growth; not just theirs, but mine too.

Life has not always been easy. We’ve faced valleys, storms, and long stretches of where the path forward wasn’t clear. However, those mountains reminded me to hold on. Strength often takes shape slowly.

This weekend, I stood before those mountains, nearing 55 and full of feelings that I didn’t expect. Gratitude. Healing. Pride. A sense that even the quietest promises we make to ourselves matter.

Sometimes we plant seeds in silence and watch them bloom years later. Sometimes a sticker becomes a vision. Sometimes a mother, worn from the climb, stands tall and sees her daughters reflected in the horizon.

The Three Sisters. My girls. My journey. One promise fulfilled. Onward.

A Life’s Work

I used to wonder what my hobbies were, what I loved doing for me. Then one day, it hit me: My passion project, my constant devotion since my early 20s.. was raising my children.

Through sleepless night, scraped knees, school meetings, and whispered prayers, I showed up. They were my canvas, my legacy, my rhythm. The seasons passed, and I poured myself into motherhood like it was both art and survival.

Now, as they’ve stretched into their own lives, I find myself standing in the quiet, asking Who am I when I’m not needed in the same way? What do I like, when I’m not loving them through a thousand small things?

It’s a beautiful ache. Because in giving so much, I realize now it’s time to return to myself, not to erase who I was, but to remember who I’ve always been beneath the giving.

*Were you raised by someone who had hobbies?

What hobbies, if any, did you have when you raised your child(ren)?

For the woman I was, am, and becoming.

At DaughterMotherMe.com, I share my lived journey of survival, motherhood, and self-reclamation to inspire healing and truth-telling. I hold space for women navigating loss, estrangement, and reinvention — reminding them they are not alone, and that it’s never too late to choose themselves.

An evening with fresh lavender and a (non alcoholic) beverage.