LOVE LETTERS TO MOMS
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional roller coaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Hello, friends.
The hardest part about raising teens is that it feels like we can't be happy unless they're happy. And by happy, I mean safe, smiling, getting good grades, doing their best, spending time with friends, talking to us. The problem is that none of this is in our control, and yet we can't keep hoping and trying.
But when we fail, we end up feeling anxious, sad, frustrated, and guilty. But what if I told you you could find a way to stop feeling so much pain without giving up on supporting your child? You just need tools. And in Mom 2.0, I've got them.
Join me on a journey to gain control over your emotional life and harness the power to show up for your child without tearing yourself apart. It is possible to strengthen your relationship with your child even as they pull away, to support your own well-being, overcome anxiety, sadness, and frustration, and create a new purpose as your children find their independence. Learn more at www.thesmalljar.com or check out the link in my bio.
Now, on to the show. Episode number 49. Hello, friends.
First, I want to start off by wishing you a happy Mother's Day, even if you're listening to this a couple days or weeks late. May your expectations be low, and may you be fabulously and pleasantly surprised that your expectations were exceeded. I've been thinking a lot about the future lately, ironically, in an effort to stay in the present.
I saw a post on Instagram a few weeks ago, and the audio offered something along the lines of, in 20 years, you'll wish you were back in the moment, as young as you are now, as healthy as you are now. I guess I might add, as physically close to our kids as we are now. Everything's relative, right? So I can imagine being 70 or 75 years old and looking back at the person I am now, 50, having hot flashes and feeling a lot more creaky and less in control of my body than I was even five years ago.
At 75, I'd probably be saying to myself right now, appreciate it while you've got it, your health, your relative youth. I know I wish I could say that to my 30-year-old self. I guess that's why they say youth is wasted on the young.
But we're in our 50s. Okay, maybe you're in your 40s or 60s, but most of us are at this stage in life where we're thinking about this next chapter. Call it chapter two.
But it's also like we're stuck with one foot in the chapter with kids and one foot out, not quite sure how to navigate between the two worlds. It can feel like we have no compass. I don't know about you, but in retrospect, it seemed like my life was pretty well charted up until now.
In college or in my early 20s, I had no idea how my life would turn out, but I was fairly sure it would involve eventually getting married, having kids, buying a house, settling down. In my 20s, I was definitely not thinking beyond the stage where I find myself now. It's like the mile markers are gone.
There's not an obvious next step, and if anything, we can find ourselves clinging to the past, not really wanting to let go, or just perceiving that our kids are not ready for us to let go, even if we do want to move on. If I could write a letter to my 25-year-old self, as I close my eyes, I can imagine her sitting on the fire escape of her small but cozy New York apartment, smoking a cigarette, and the first thing I would say is, stop smoking. You're going to stop anyway in a few years, so you might as well stop now.
I wouldn't want to spoil the big headlines of the future for her or risk changing her path, so as I wrote to her, I would be careful with my words, giving her hope, encouragement, and maybe even some insight into who she already was that would create her future. Some of you may be thinking that you'd want to tell yourself about some of the dangers ahead of her, things they should either prepare themselves for or avoid at all cost, but I wonder if she took a different path, would she still turn out to be you? Maybe you, but different. All of the beauty you have experienced and the challenges you've overcome have made you exactly as you are right now, and what if changing the outcome would somehow change who your kids are or how many you have? Some parallel, alternate outcome.
No thanks. No amount of regret would have me trade my boys. I would 100% want her, my 25-year-old self, to follow my path again.
I would write my letter to my 25-year-old self that I, that she, was stronger than she felt right then. That sometimes you don't know how strong you are until you're tested. I would tell her that there is incredible joy ahead of her and deep pain, and that the pain would only be there because it was preceded by love.
In fact, I would tell her that she could look forward to experiencing a love so pure and so profound that it defies description. While I wouldn't tell her she would become a mother of two beautiful, strong, talented boys, I would know in my heart that this gift was ahead of her. I would probably want to tell her not to that gift, to appreciate the little moments more.
But I also know she probably won't listen. She, like most of us, would eventually get caught up in the newness of motherhood, overwhelmed by the exhaustion and confusion of not knowing how to parent a newborn, always feeling two steps behind the next stage of growth, playing referee between two boys 20 months apart. My 25-year-old self would hear about this profound and pure love ahead of her, and she'd probably be envisioning some fairytale romance.
So she'd ask, tell me more. Does everything turn out okay? She'd be thinking about romance, and I'd be thinking about the boys. I'd really want to tell her, yes, that everything turns out okay.
And it has in so many ways, in a way I could never have imagined. But maybe instead I would say everything happens exactly as it's meant to. There were so many bumps along the road, and they all taught me, they will all teach you something.
Each stage of life offers you a new curriculum, and the challenge and learning helps you grow into that next version of yourself. I probably wouldn't tell her about everything she had to learn, like how she would have to learn how to manage her temper and not fly off the handle so easily. She would have to learn to be a lot less selfish.
She would become an expert at time management and also Legos. She would learn how to live in a world of carefully orchestrated chaos, and she would come to love it. As I think about how much my 25-year-old self had to learn, I realize I'm not quite done learning all of my lessons.
Every new stage of my life has required me to adjust, but looking ahead to the stage when my boys are gone, living their own life, there's a big part of me that doesn't want to have to learn the lessons ahead of me. I can sense that there's a part of me that still thinks I have influence over my boys. I can acknowledge I still hold on to some shame and regret.
I replay the past and beat myself up because I should have done some things differently or known better. And let's face it, I'm not really convinced my job with my boys is done, and so it really feels premature to be congratulating myself on a job well done when there still seems to be so much parenting road ahead of me, even if what that looks like is very different. And I guess as I say this, will I ever really be ready or in the headspace to congratulate myself at all? How interesting is it that we take on all of the blame for the way things don't turn out the way we'd hoped, but we never give ourselves credit for the successes, the wins.
I give the credit all to my boys. The losses? I should have done something differently. With this in mind, I would want to tell my 25-year-old self to give herself a lot of grace and compassion.
I'd tell her you're in for the ride of your life. You'll feel wholly unprepared so much of the time, but you're not alone and it's part of the process. You'll learn and grow and love.
And I guess in the end, what else is more important than that? To learn and love and grow. That's what I want for my boys, right? And that's what I would tell my 25-year-old self to look forward to. How interesting to remind ourselves of that opportunity now, to love, learn, and grow.
I remember my 25-year-old self being in a hurry. She wanted to find love so that she could be sure that this future would be available to her. But if she knew what I knew now, maybe she wouldn't have been in such a hurry.
The interesting thing about being in a hurry is that we're typically in a rush to feel better. We think if our circumstances change for the better, then we can feel better. But interestingly, this rarely works.
Into every new circumstance, we bring our mind. I've heard it said, wherever we go, there we are. No matter our circumstances, no matter what's happening around us, we interpret the world through our own lens.
That may include thoughts about our past, thoughts about how we're not worthy or deserving, thoughts about how things never work out for us. In my 20s, I held on to a lot of doubt and insecurity. I had a work ethic that led me to try to run myself into the ground to prove my worth, to get acknowledgement and validation for my efforts.
As a mom, this showed up for me too, needing my boys to validate me and give me those feelings of worth that I craved. We can feel so tied to the purpose of our lives that we don't know how to generate feelings of pride and accomplishment without attachment to the purpose. Of all the things I could say to my 25-year-old self, I don't know how it would go over if I said, you eventually found life coaching and your world turned around.
I would probably give my 50-year-old self a confused look and just stop listening. But I guess what I would say to her is that I learned how to take responsibility for myself and my emotional life in a way that changed everything. It's funny that as I say this, it occurs to me, this is exactly what we want for our kids.
But so many of us haven't even figured it out for ourselves. And what do I mean by that? Take responsibility for myself? Well, that's self-explanatory. I think we can all take care of ourselves or take responsibility for ourselves at this point as 50-year-old women.
But take responsibility for our emotional life? That, I had no idea was possible. We're raised to believe that other people are responsible for our feelings, that other people can make us happy or sad or hurt. Without meaning to, we all teach our kids this, that we're responsible for each other's feelings.
And it sounds nice to teach everyone to be good to each other, except people in the world aren't good to each other all the time. Or at the very least, they don't meet our expectations most of the time. So our emotional life is left at the mercy of how other people behave and show up.
Taking responsibility for our emotional lives involves understanding that it's not other people who make us feel one way or the other. It's our thoughts about what other people say or do that makes us feel a certain kind of way. The difference is everything.
Because we can't control other people, but we can become deeply aware of our thoughts, which gives us all of our power back. So while my 25-year-old self wouldn't understand what I meant, I would tell her that she would eventually learn that she was always the one in charge of her emotional life. She just didn't know it yet.
I have so much love for that young woman who was so optimistic, yet scared out of her mind, who had so many habits that were coping mechanisms, who was excited for what comes next. If you were to write a letter to your 25-year-old self, what would you tell her right now? Of all the things, I can imagine the closing might be something like, buckle up, enjoy the ride. You are not going to believe what comes next.
And maybe also, it goes so fast. So now as I sit here on Mother's Day, I think about three other letters I would love to write or receive. I would love to receive a letter from my 75-year-old self, who, God willing, is still healthy and thriving.
There are so many questions I would have for her. First, about my boys, our boys. How did they turn out? What did they end up doing in life? Are they happy, married? Am I a grandmother? Do their wives like me or hate me? Am I in their lives? I think right now, that's one of my top worries.
Whatever their journey in life, I hope and pray they'll figure it out and find their own happiness. I know at age 75, I'll probably have let most of it go by then. But what I want to know most is if I'll be in their lives, wherever they are.
Right now, as they try so hard to pull away and figure out who they are independent from me, it doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion that I'll be part of their lives. I know I'll always love them. I'll always be there for them.
But will they want me to be? Do I want to know what I'll be doing with myself? Yes, it might be nice to know. By 75, I can imagine I would have figured out a way to fill my time. But just as I wouldn't want to spoil the path ahead of my 25-year-old self, my 75-year-old self would also probably not want to spoil the future for me either.
She'd be careful with her words. She'd probably be tempted to tell me about some of the pain ahead of me. But she'd also know that all of the beauty she experienced and the challenges she overcame made her exactly who she is.
And at 75, she's developed a pretty deep appreciation for who she is that eluded her in her younger years. Plus, there's no amount of regret that would have her trade in her boys and anyone else who may or may not have come along. She would write to me, 75-year-old to 50-year-old, that I'm stronger than I think I am, that sometimes you don't know how strong you are until you're tested.
She would tell me that there's incredible joy ahead of me and deep pain, and the pain would only be there because it was preceded by love. She wouldn't tell me if I had grandchildren or other love in my life, but she would know in her heart that these gifts were ahead of me. She would absolutely want to tell me not to waste the gift, to appreciate the little moments more, especially these moments when the kids still have one foot in the But she would also know that I might not listen.
I, like most of us, am caught up in the anxiety and frustration of not knowing how to parent teenagers, always feeling two steps behind, playing referee with the negative thoughts in my head telling me how I'm doing it wrong, and that I've made so many mistakes, that whatever is happening right now is my fault and my responsibility to fix. As a 50-year-old, I would hear about this profound and pure love ahead of me, and of course, I would be envisioning grandchildren. I'd ask, does everything turn out okay? My 75-year-old self would say everything happens exactly as it's meant to, that whatever bumps in the road you experience, they're all there to teach you.
They help you grow into that next version of yourself, into me. She probably wouldn't tell me about everything I had to learn, like how I needed to let go of the past and stop blaming myself for things out of my control, like how I needed to let go of the thought that I have a right to be in my boy's lives, that as painful as it is to consider the alternative, it opens the door to the opportunity to receive the gift of their invitation to be in their lives. Such a profound gift, but only theirs to give.
I would need to learn to find purpose within myself, no longer relying on my kids or things outside of me to help validate me or think I matter. I would need to learn that I'm worthy and enough, exactly as I am. And I might need to learn how to live in a world of carefully orchestrated peace and quiet, and that I would learn to love it.
As my 75-year-old self thought about how much I, the 50-year-old, had to learn, she would know with absolute clarity that I'm not done learning all my lessons. With this in mind, she'd tell me to give myself a lot of grace and compassion. She'd tell me that I will learn and grow and love, and she would remind me that there is nothing more important than that.
My 75-year-old self would also probably observe that I am still, at 50 years old, in a hurry. I'm in a hurry to make sure my boys are okay, to take care of everyone, to fit in so much so that I can feel proud of my effort, even if no one else notices. I can be in a hurry to feel better, less anxious and unsettled, less drained and stressed.
My 75-year-old self would tell me that if I knew what she knew, I wouldn't be in such a hurry. She would say that at every stage of her life there was something perfect and precious, and that all this hurry means is that we miss so much of it. We want our circumstances to change so we can feel better, but circumstances are always changing.
And have you noticed? We still don't feel better all the time. Wherever we go, there we are. She would acknowledge that with the tools I'd learned as a life coach, the ability to manage my mind and take responsibility for my emotional life, she recognized that so much changed for me in my late 40s because of this.
And she would say, you are only just beginning to understand the power of these tools in your life. Think of the power of letting go of the need for other people to meet our expectations in order for us to be happy. Think of the peace of accepting yourself fully, loving yourself fully, even when you yourself don't meet your own expectations.
We get to decide what all of it means, and what if all of it happens exactly as it's meant to? Sweetheart, you are only just beginning to understand the power of this freedom. She would have so much love for me, the 50-year-old version of myself who's so optimistic yet fearful. I think she would be grateful to me, to be honest, for showing up every day, for loving as hard as I can, for always trying to be the best mom, the best version of myself, even when that turns out looking terrible in retrospect.
In closing, she would say, buckle up, enjoy the ride. You're not going to believe what comes next. It goes so fast.
There's one more letter I'd love to receive, maybe on my 75th birthday. By then, my boys will be 40 and 42, and I'd love for them to write me a letter and answer a few questions. How did it all turn out? Are you happy? Do you love your life? Are you married? Does your partner love me or hate me? Do you have kids? Do they know who I am? Am I in your lives? Have you forgiven me? Do you have any idea how much I love you? I'll know by age 75 that I have absolutely zero influence on their life, but I pray that I will be in their lives, whatever that looks like, in whatever way they invite me in.
I hope they know I'll always love them. I'll always be there for them, and that they would want me to be. I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know what they'll say in 25 years, but I can only hope that they'll know that I did my best.
So my mom is 78 years old, and so I'm a few years off, but I can write her this letter. Dear mom, I have such a beautiful life, and you gave it all to me. I'm learning to love the 50-50 of life, the joy and pain, and this is a lesson you taught me by example so many times, but it was a lesson I had to learn for myself.
You always like to say we live in the precious present. I love my husband, and he loves you like a mom, too. You've welcomed him into our family as a son with open arms, and you know all of this because you two probably talk more than we do.
You are the third person to welcome my boys into the world, and you've been cheering them on every single day of their lives, their beloved Grammy. Even though we live far apart and we don't always get to see each other nearly as much as we all want, you're always a part of our lives. We cherish every visit and adventure with you.
There's never been a day when I haven't known how much you love me. You've never wavered once in your unconditional love and support, even when I've been down the wrong path. As I've grown up, I've only come to appreciate your love, support, and wisdom more.
Every time I've stumbled, even as recently as last month, you've been there to support me. Every single time it's mattered, every milestone, every challenge, every celebration, you've been right by my side. Mom, you are such a gift in my life, and I don't tell you that enough.
Did you make mistakes? I don't remember any. Absolutely nothing that mattered. I was a handful as a teenager, and I'm sorry.
I don't even remember what I was so upset about all the time. Honestly, I think I've told you before that sometimes I didn't want to tell you what was wrong because I was afraid it would sound stupid if I said it out loud. What I really remember about my life is that you loved me every step of the way, and that's what mattered.
You are the ultimate teacher, Mom, to live in the precious present, to think of every day as your best day, that the point of life is to love, learn, and grow. I couldn't have asked for a better role model, and yet I had to learn these lessons on my own. No matter how incredible the teacher, the student learns through their own failure, I love you and I am so grateful to have you in my life.
I can imagine some of you listening may have more of a mixed relationship with your mom. Perhaps your letter to your mom wouldn't be quite as glowing and significantly less forgiving. The one message I hope all of you will take away is that although my mom is a superstar, she couldn't save me from the lessons I needed to learn myself over the past 30 years.
She couldn't make me happy. She couldn't take away my pain, but she was there to hold my hand when I asked her to, every step of the way. And if you are listening to this podcast, I imagine you are also that kind of superstar mom who would do anything to support her kids, even if they don't think they need you right now.
This moment is just a precious sliver of time that will pass. We can't know what's ahead, but we can always love our kids for who they are. We can always love ourselves for who we are, messy, two steps behind, learning, growing, loving our kids, trying our best.
So on this Mother's Day and any day you happen to be listening to this podcast, let's celebrate our willingness to grow and learn the lessons our kids are teaching us right now. Maybe we can even learn to love and be in the present moment, even if there's pain, because someday we're going to be 75 years old looking back on this time and thinking, it goes so fast.
Happy Mother's Day, my friends.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
