The Summer I Finally Will Feel Like a Mom

There's a version of motherhood I thought I'd signed up for.

Lazy mornings. Sticky popsicle hands. Afternoons that stretched out slow and golden and full. The kind of summer you see in Instagram reels set to a folk song, where the mom looks sun-kissed and unhurried and present. I like to call it the moms in their “Flo-state.”

And then there's the version I was actually living.

Phone in one hand, to-do list in my head, toddler tugging on my arm while I mentally ran through client deadlines. Physically in the backyard. Mentally in a Zoom meeting. Nodding along to a little voice I wasn't fully hearing. Smiling at moments I wasn't fully in.

I wasn't a bad mom. I was a mom who had completely lost the thread between who she was and how she was spending her days.

And the hardest part? I didn't even realize it for a while. Because I was doing all the right things. The activities. The snacks. The quality time. I was present in the logistical sense- body in the room, tasks completed, boxes checked.

But somewhere between building my business and managing everyone else's, I had quietly turned motherhood into another thing to manage.

If you've ever felt like the CEO of your household rather than a member of it, I see you.

Not in a "bless your heart" kind of way. In a I have been you and I understand exactly how invisible that exhaustion is kind of way.

I feel like no one talks about this specific flavor of checked-out-ness. Where you're actually killing it on paper- but something underneath feels hollow and wrong and a little bit like grief.

We talk a lot about mom guilt. We don't talk nearly enough about mom disconnection. The feeling of standing in your own life and feeling oddly far away from it.

That's where I was. And here's what I've learned about getting back.

The shift didn't come from doing less. It came from feeling more.

I know that sounds like a bumper sticker. Stay with me.

The version of me that felt like a manager was operating almost entirely from her head. Thinking, planning, anticipating, problem-solving. It's a useful mode. It's also a mode that keeps you at a slight remove from your actual life- like you're watching it on a screen instead of living inside it.

The version of me that finally started feeling like a mom- not a title, but an actual felt experience- had to learn to drop back into her body a little. To let a moment be just a moment. To resist the urge to optimize the afternoon.

It sounds so simple. It is genuinely one of the hardest things I've ever practiced.

And it's ongoing. I won't pretend I've arrived. Some days I'm still the manager. But I'm getting better at catching it. At pausing. At remembering that the sticky-handed chaos is the actual good stuff, not the obstacle to it.

Here's what I want you to take from this:

It’s okay if motherhood feels more exhausting than magical right now. You're not failing because you can't seem to slow down. You're not alone in the gap between the summer you imagined and the one you're living.

But you also don't have to stay stuck there.

Feeling disconnected from your own motherhood is common. It is not the standard you have to accept.

There is a version of summer- well, of everyday life- that actually feels good. Not perfect. Not Pinterest. Just good. Present. Yours.

That's my goal. I'm going to keep sharing everything that's actually helping me get there- the mindset shifts, the products, the rhythms, the real talk.

I'm so glad you're here.