I want to write.

I want to write what I’m learning about God. About the good things He is bringing us in and through and to. About how He is so faithful it makes my eyes well as I talk with Him in the car, in the shower, anytime it’s semi-quiet in my head. About how He’s refining me and I fight it, then collapse into Him as He covers me with His wing. About how I see Him at work in my kids and it’s the most beautiful goodness I’ve ever witnessed.

I want to write real. About the overflowing laundry and lists that don’t quit and keep me up at night. About the kids I can’t seem to keep up with, and the way my heart literally aches with love for them. About the guilt that comes with seeing the weight and work piled on my husbands shoulders. About how yesterday I put work and my phone aside, and played for hours with my kids, listened to old stories on older vinyl with them and made snacks and laughed deep from our bellies together, and how I want to make that choice more often because it was so good.

I want to write friendships. How I’ve grieved the loss of a friendship that fractured past repair. How my heart races and my people-pleasing does overtime because at times it seems like I can’t please any of the people. How it’s straight-up hard to make friends in your 30s, and it’s harder to keep them and cultivate real relationships and depth of conversation because there are kids everywhere and no one’s sleeping. How every time someone mentions a book club they’re in, my stomach clenches with jealousy. How grateful I am for the friends who live in my phone, and the ones I see only on occasion but who have my heart. How I’m so thankful it’s fall so we can start back up with our MOPS group (Mothers of Preschoolers) because those women are my people and I’d be sunk without them. How friendships in my 30s are difficult but they’re real, and that makes them so deeply good.

I want to write about the struggle to live in the between — between work, between personal, between all the things that get in the way of both. About how the selfishness that sometimes drives me and the shame that chases it. About how on the surface, it looks like no other mothers share this struggle. About the dreams I have that are painfully on hold because other things are bigger, and I’m finally old enough to make good decisions for myself about what comes first.

I want to write the hard. That I’m terrified to mother my girls because though I choose not to watch the news, the headlines find me and my own past haunts me and women are so often victims. That it’s time we (as a societal whole) had some hard conversations that lead to clean slates. That I question what I know of the church because of what I know of the goodness of God.

I want to write simple. What I’m into this month. My version of mom-fashion. Stories about my kids. Stories about being a work-at-home mom and sharing an office with my work-at-home husband. Stories about mothering, the latest tips and tricks and silly things that have worked for me. Recipes we’ve recently loved. Our favorite local ice cream shops and parks and recaps of good days.

I want to write all these things and more, and it’s the slew of words that renders me silent. It makes me feel unfocused, will never lead to a book contract or millions of page views, and it keeps me quiet. It’s reflective of the state of my heart: a little frazzled, a lot tired, filled with questions. Yet still, there is a peace that doesn’t make any sense. There is a joy that grounds me. There is a love that is all-encompassing and bigger than any rough parts. There is a calm that gently reminds me to breathe. There is so much good, in and through it all, and I just don’t have enough words for what it’s doing to my life, my heart, but the good? The good is what I want to write.