The Seasons of a Mother

In the beginning, it was you and me. Nights that stretched on forever, my body aching, my eyes heavy -- but my arms never letting go.

You were so small, and I was so tired, but love for you kept me awake.

Then comes the season of your running feet & sticky fingers. Shoes always on the wrong feet, but laughter always in earshot spilling through the house like sunshine.

I chased you, I carried you, I tried to catch every single moment in my mind -- knowing even then, that I couldn't hold them all.

And then one day, not so long ago, you had a backpack, and a door closed behind you. The silence felt louder than any of your cries ever did.

I smiled. I waved. But all through it my heart was whispering how this was the beginning of goodbye.

Because soon your world grew wider. Friends will call, and you will answer. Your stories will become shorter & your time at home smaller.

And I struggle to remember -- this was the point all along.

Because Motherhood was never about keeping. It was about raising, it was about building wings, even though it always means I will watch you fly away.

So go--

Be BOLD. Be FREE.

For every season of me lives inside of you.

And though you will leave again, and again, my love is and always was

meant to follow.

-- Jordan O'Brien | Owner of Carnation Counseling LLC | August 21, 2025

Pandemic Babies

In 2020, the world went silent. Empty streets, closed doors, sirens singing lullabies in the distance.

We birthed hope in the middle of chaos — tiny lungs learning to breathe while the world forgot how.

We raised them behind glass and cloth, sanitizer and prayers. Counting milestones in living rooms, celebrating first steps in the quiet hum of quarantine.

We were their safe place when everything else felt unsafe. We held them tighter than tight, whispered promises we weren’t sure we could keep:

You’re loved. You’re safe. I’ve got you.

And now it’s 2025.

Five years.

Four or five or five candles on cakes we once thought we’d never blow out in public again. And those babies — our pandemic babies — are pulling on tiny backpacks, learning to spell their names, walking into classrooms without us.

And no one warns you about this part — how the quiet after they leave echoes louder than the lockdown ever did. How letting go feels harder than holding on.

But still, we do it. We open our palms, let them run into a world we prayed would be gentler by now. We watch them bloom, remembering the seeds we planted when everything felt barren.

This is what it means to love them: To build a sanctuary

and then teach them how to leave it.

-- Jordan O'Brien | Owner of Carnation Counseling LLC | August 4, 2025

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