"A Teenage Mom's Aspiring North Stars"
Connection over control—
a wobbly balance
as I resist the urge
to send the text,
fix the problem,
or absorb everyone else's feelings.
In relationships built on trust,
and boundaries
love and limits can coexist,
I whisper to myself
like a woman reciting ancient
scripture.
As I find myself
negotiating with a teenage lawyer
who has reviewed the evidence,
prepared a closing argument,
and is absolutely convinced
they know everything.
The boundary wavers.
I am trying.
Feelings are allowed here.
Theirs.
Mine.
Love and frustration.
Repair and rupture.
Gratitude and grief.
Hope and exhaustion.
The occasional fantasy
of sitting by the ocean
without worrying about anyone.
I do not hope they remember
whether every rule
was perfectly enforced.
I hope they remember
that I returned.
That after the rupture,
I came back.
I hope they remember
that I took the time to listen.
That conflict was not the
apocalypse.
That discomfort did not mean
abandonment.
That apologies existed here.
That mistakes were not character
flaws.
I hope they remember
that emotions are not dangerous—
even when they feel
bigger than the room can hold.
I am the model.
I am the ongoing draft.
Still deleting old programming
and discovering how stubbornly
it rewrites itself.
They absorb who I am
more easily than what I say.
Maybe
the work on me
becomes the work for them.
My self-worth.
My boundaries.
The way I handle conflict.
The way I speak to myself
when I fail.
The way I begin again.
Especially when my nervous system
is held together by caffeine,
insight,
therapy,
and generations of inherited survival
strategies
disguised as love.
I am their template.
Which feels unfair
to everyone involved.
Still—
I keep showing up
in a home where feelings can exist
without shame.
Including mine.
A home where respect moves
in both directions.
Where no one needs to shrink
to be loved.
Where truth is allowed.
One stepping into adulthood.
One standing at the edge.
I am not raising children forever.
I am raising future adults,
people I hope are learning
how to think critically,
love honestly,
leave when they should,
trust themselves,
and call me occasionally.
I am learning
that a nervous system
cannot pour endlessly from itself
without eventually becoming
a broken fire alarm—
screaming at burnt toast
while missing the actual fire.
I am learning
that rest is not failure.
That repair is not weakness.
That boundaries are not rejection.
That imperfect people
can still build safe homes.
Perhaps my deepest North Star
is not raising good kids.
It is creating a family
where healing is allowed.
Where none of us
have to earn our worth.
Where we are able to tell the truth.
Where we leave,
return,
and begin again.
When they remember me,
I do not hope they remember
perfection.
I hope they remember
feeling safe enough
to become themselves
in my presence.
That they were never too much.
Never not enough.
And while I often lose my way,
I keep looking for my North.
