A glass of water
Or the choices that are always here
I can’t get more sleep, but I can drink a glass of water.
I can’t make a smoothie, but I can put a teabag in a cup.
I cannot escape for the day into the woods, but I can choose to focus on the sound of the birds when my daughter nurses at dawn.
I can’t write down my dreams in the morning, but I can remind myself that I still have dreams for my life.
I don’t have time to do my hair, but I can choose, when I pass by the mirror, to notice one thing I still love about my own face.
I won’t be able to plant the flower garden this year, but I can touch the cherry blossoms so the petals fall down on us like rain.
I cannot hop on a plane and disappear for a week by myself in a foreign country, but I can lay on my back on the lush green grass and close my eyes so that when I open them, for a second, everything looks new again.
I can’t turn down the volume of life, but I can learn how to touch the quiet stone in the garden at the center of me.
I can’t stay up to watch the meteor shower, but I can light a candle before bed and let my gratitude for the small things find me like shooting stars.
I can’t write the next book, produce the next course, create the next offering, but I can allow myself to keep on becoming. I can allow my own becoming to be enough.
I cannot change where I am in life, but I can decide to let go of timelines.
I cannot be who I was, but I can be who I am now.
I cannot escape to an ashram, but I can open my eyes to the spiritual transformation that is realizing I have a choice, even when it feels like I don’t have one.
I cannot be anywhere else, but I can be here now.
Sometimes, after a particularly rough night’s sleep, when I know I have a whole day ahead with no nap in sight, I remind myself—I can drink a cup of water—and somehow it always comforts me. To remember, I always have a choice. That I have agency. That there is still possibility.
In a lot of ways, becoming a parent takes away the endless options you once had.
But this is the spiritual unfoldment that comes with becoming a mother.
It’s only when we think we have no choices left, that we realize life never stops holding possibility. That it’s when you get to that choiceless place, that you open up to the true potential of existence.
The very thing those mystics (the ones who went into caves by themselves for decades) won with those years of isolation, we parents can achieve in one sleepless night.
To let go of our identity—and find out who we are.
To give up our hold on life—and watch existence rush in to greet us.
To accept that there are no choices left—and step into an endless field of possibility.
Lovely post, thank you, Asia.
It takes me back to the days when my three were young, and I was a young mother in Bangalore, India. I remember one day in particular. I was 24 and the mother of two littles. My daughter had just turned two and my son was a few months old.
He had a little bouncer that I would put him in so I could get a bit of editing work done. It was the only place other than my arms that he would be content.
Then the bouncer broke. My chubby little baby was too heavy for it.
And he was not happy ANYWHERE but in my arms. I couldn't get anything done and felt frustrated and tired.
But then the thought filtered through my mind that I would not have this moment forever and that I should treasure it.
That "chubby baby" is heading to college in a few months. (And of course, he's chosen a school over a thousand miles away.) His big sister has already been away at college (2,000 miles) for two years now.
I'm only going to have one teenager left at home.
Those days when they were young, that felt like they'd last forever (especially when all I wanted was a nap!), have drifted away from me like dandelion seeds. They root only in my memory and in my photo feed.
But they are treasures, and more so my children, who will always be my little ones (even though my boys are both taller than me now!)
Oh, this comes to my inbox at the end of one of those particularly long and hard parenting days, and these words feel like just the healing balm or (cool glass of water) I needed. Thank you ♥️