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For the entire year, I’ve been telling my writing mastermind that I want to write about motherhood.1 I’ve only written a little about my boys, more about my oldest’s rare disease than anything else, and I’ve never wanted to write more about them. I still don’t want to write more about them; they are whole people deserving of privacy and having their stories held with dignity. But my maturity in motherhood? That I am interested in writing about. I had the desire but I didn’t have a format, a structure to hold the past thirteen years.
Last month, I slipped into my local bookstore and walked out with You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. I’ll review it with my monthly roundup, but—spoiler alert—I loved it. The writing was beautiful and I was sad when it was done. She tells the story of her divorce and so much more in short vignettes. It was very different than I had imagined. It only took me a few minutes to realize that this was a format in which I could write about motherhood.
So I’m going to try. Most of these stories will be behind the paywall because I am not ready for anything else. But I’m going to lean into this longing and see what comes of it. And I’ll start out with what could be, but hopefully won’t be, a controversial fear.2
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