Today I was called into an interview for a part time job at the very facility my mother died in 22 years earlier. As I sat in the foyer waiting to be called to the interview I looked up at the glass dome I walked under for 2 weeks as I was preparing to say good-bye to my mother. When I got called into my interview, into a beautiful, clean, well decorated office, I sat at the conference table which looked out a window and beyond the window was the window I looked out of, from the room my mother was dying in, that many years ago.

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The problem with our expectations is they rarely live up to what we imagine. Whether they are our own, society's, or someone else's, we hardly ever meet them. It took my life falling apart for me to understand that the expectations I held onto were also the cage I kept myself in. I tried for so long to keep propping things up and pasting things back together - my marriage, my addiction, my inner feelings and desires. I felt if I just kept the image of meeting the expectation going, then I would feel better. And no one would think I had failed.

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Out of a need for approval, or acceptance, did we pursue someone else's longings instead of our own? Did we mistake our sense of belonging for what someone else wanted from us instead of what WE wanted from ourself?
We all want to belong. And we falsely think if we are like everyone else, if we do what they do, then we will belong. We mistake belonging for fitting-in and sameness.

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I was bought back, back to the days of sleepless nights and senseless worry that I was doing something wrong. I was reminded of the all-consuming task of having a baby, and the fleeting preciousness of it all. Of course, the overall time span is short while the individual days and nights so long. I witnessed the conflict of holding an adorable, puffily-diapered bottom and the equal desire to potty-train soon. I remembered the magic of falling asleep next to a warm baby’s body and also wondering when it will all end and go back to normal.

I was there, and now I am here, on the other side. Nothing gets easier, we parents only adjust to the inevitable shifts in time and do the best we can within each seemingly forever phase of raising children. I would love the chance to snuggle again with my small babies, without also having to endure the strength and sacrifice it takes to get through new parenthood. But that’s not how it works.

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Huggies, Moby, Plum Organics, and many more - all well-known brands with gorgeous booths - giving out free samples and educating moms on their useful products.

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