What does it mean to live life ON PURPOSE?
Hey you,
I am a late-in-life parent. I had my daughter when I was 43, and she’s now six. You can do the math to figure out where I am in life now. Becoming a parent was the most on purpose thing I’ve ever done in life. It came after years of ambivalence and uncertainty, and a real push-pull against all the expectations any woman experiences from family, her culture, and the world about motherhood.
It wasn’t a decision I made alone. My now-husband and I had been together for seven years. And they’d been great years, so as much as I trusted that meant we had a good foundation to bring a child into, I was also really afraid we’d break what we had. We met with a trusted therapist to figure out how to even make a decision that big, that potentially irreversible.
I realize many people come to be parents without nearly as much inspection of the choice. And many people want to become parents who don’t have the same options, or feel like they have any options. The road to parenting or not-parenting is full of deeply personal feelings and experiences, worthy of respect and gentleness.
After many, many more hours of soul searching and talking about it, and researching our options, my husband and I ultimately decided to try IVF. IVF is its own journey of deeply personal feelings and experiences.
As a creative writer, one of the ways I cope with big things is to document them in writing. I kept a meticulous record of the wild ups and downs as a way to stay sane, determined to make art out of whatever the outcome. That documentation indeed became the kernel of my first novel coming out this September: THE CLINIC. I’ll be sharing plenty more about that in the months to come.
Let’s fast forward over a bunch of really hard, heavy stuff, like the first round failing completely, or learning that my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was pregnant. Like a really hard birth, and quite critical health concerns that immediately followed. Like the impossible crush of newborn life, sleeplessness, and heart-bursting love.
There was a moment in the first year of my daughter’s life that I really questioned our life-altering choice. The intensity of tethering that motherhood creates is unfathomable, and inescapable. And not something moms are supposed to talk about.
I’d never made such an on-purpose choice. And I assumed when I did that meant there’d never be doubt. That the challenges would be softened somehow. I was wrong.
What does it mean to live a life ON PURPOSE? Well, it doesn’t mean that everything then unfolds in a smooth, easy, linear line. Life is still life: a messy mix of predictable and unpredictable. But making on purpose choices for your life is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. And the world around you.
The entire trajectory of my life shifted with my on-purpose choice to become a mother. Which helped me be brave about making other on purpose choices. Like becoming a coach. Starting a business. Finishing novels. And getting them ready to share with the world.
If you know me at all, you know I’m pretty obsessed with my daughter now. Life with her is a gift. Had I chosen a different path on purpose, I feel very confident that life could have been a gift too (another thing moms aren’t supposed to talk about). That belief takes nothing away from my deep love for my daughter.
What’s something in your life this month that is inviting you to be on purpose about it?
Sending you courage for the brave steps you are taking,
Christin