I see you fearing that you’ve become irrelevant.

I see you even though you’ve potato bugged into a careful self protective ball. I see how you’ve held on tight, trying to keep your head above water, and stay relevant, as your capacity and your energy has been sucked away by distance learning, physical distancing, the pain of seeing the maskless wonders. And I’m coming for you as I see you fearing that you’ve become irrelevant.

Today, this blog is for the mothers.

No, it isn’t a “you don’t know because you’re not a mom” blog. Not at all. If you’re reading to gain understanding, I greatly and humbly thank you. It’s been rough for all of us. This blog just highlights how it’s been rough for the moms. Today, I wanted to speak to them, and me.

It’s an elephantine pain to be on a forward trajectory, feeling full of power and prowess, and to have an avalanche of “NO!” topple in front of you on your path.

There you are, one day, making plans. Filling out goals worksheets. Marketing better than you ever had before. And then, with little warning… well, maybe some warning… the walls come crashing down. The emergency brake gets pulled – the next thing you know you’re panicking on the inside and smiling on the outside.

Yeah, yeah, it’s been nine months since lockdown. Yet, you were busy helping everyone else. Making sure that partners, and spouses, and clients, and friends were okay. You were holding on for dear life because you’ve got responsibilities that are mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Well, I see you, fighting for your three jobs and two businesses and four kids.

That whole time you were making sure that everyone had everything they needed to hunker down for the long haul – making sure the proverbial emergency kits were properly packed – the Zoom settings, the extra musicianship apps, the community of musicians and singers, and the reading… dear Lord, the reading… studies and statements and social media – all to be sure that we weren’t

singing too soon…

singing too long…

singing at all?

Hot tears, geyser-like, burst forth from your wounded and tired heart. And I see you. I see you fearing that you’ve become irrelevant/

And today, on a day when we are all holding our children and partners and spouses and sanity so very tightly, I am grateful to know that you are out there.

And I am not alone.

Witnessing you with an aching love,