I nursed my last babe for the last time this weekend.

And proceeded to bawl my eyes out.

(Whether you are man or woman, kid mom or dog mom or earth mom, there is a lesson here for all of us! Stick with me 🙂.)

Nursing my babies has been one of the absolute greatest honors and gifts of my life.

But not one I ever expected.

I did not think I’d be the kind of mom who wanted to sell a successful studio so I could be at home as the primary caretaker for our firstborn. I did not think I would breastfeed until my kids were 16 months and 22 months respectively. I did not think that – six years into having kids – my husband and I would still not have taken an overnight trip together away from them. I never thought that I would be 41 years old with two kids under the age of six.

Yet here we are and I don’t regret a single moment or decision.

There are things we just don’t know about ourselves until we are in the thick of it, learning as we go, needing to listen to our guts and hearts.

There are visions and expectations we think we have for ourselves and our futures that we sometimes need to let go of when we are knee-deep in that actual future.

We can miss the beauty and gifts of the present if we are trying to fit into a mold we created for ourselves months or years before.

I had to be willing to let go of my vision and expectation of a full-time working mom and Pilates studio owner once our first baby was born. I had to listen to everything inside of me that was saying I wanted to be home. I didn’t know what that looked like, but my husband and I talked and made a plan to make it happen.

Life is a crazy, twisty turvy, unpredictable thing. Stay true to yourself and your needs in the season of life you are in. Don’t ever feel you are a failure or not fulfilling some duty just because your needs or desires have changed.

That is life.

It’s ok if it’s different than you planned because it could very well be more amazing than you ever imagined.