They say you forget your life prior to having your first. Who was I? What was I doing? Does it even matter? Yes! Life before baby totally matters! Waiting until I was 26 to get pregnant was an unplanned blessing! I love my years leading up to this pivotal moment. Heartbreak, falling in love, being a young bartender, moving, traveling, making rash decisions, regretting those decisions, learning from those decisions, being angry, letting anger go, forgiving and being forgiven, getting out of my comfort zone, figuring out being in a real, adult relationship, making new friends and keeping up with old ones, learning to laugh at myself, being an adult child of divorce, being a much older sibling, changing my entire way of eating and taking care of myself, finding a meditative practice that works for me, learning to be humble, sticking up for my faith, being in debt and getting out of debt, living with family, living with friends, fighting and making up, health scares, job complications, throwing parties, exploring my natural surroundings, asking for help, starting to define what I live for... all of it has put me down my own, individual path where I have picked up tools and dropped off burdens so I can become the parent I am today.
I have always known I've wanted to be a mom. I had a brother 18 months after I was born. I was taking care of someone from the very beginning. When I was nine I became a big sister again. And when I was almost 18 years old, my sister came into the world. Babysitting my siblings never felt like babysitting though. I was the oldest and they were my family. I was also the first grandchild and the first cousin. All of my family functions involved younger kids.
When Kingston came I wasn't nervous to parent. Of course giving birth does different things to your emotions, but in the end I never worried I'd be a bad mother ((yet!)) As I'm growing older, and I'm assuming this happens, I am seeing my parents for the humans they are. It's a hard transition from seeing your parents as the mostly perfect adult figures in your life who are ALWAYS right and never make mistakes to realizing they are just people in this crazy world trying to parent and make ends meet and make the right choices but at times may fail. I'm keeping this in mind as I'm learning to become a parent myself. I'll mess up. I'll think I'm right one way and years later maybe see it was wrong. I'll fight for my right to parent my child in the ways I see fit, just for Kingston to question it all. We might have a conversation where I'll need to apologize profusely for doing such and such this way. But I hope one day he will see that I gave my best, with my whole heart, to this job of parenting. I might do it in ways today's society doesn't understand. I might 'go against the grain.' I might be alone in my venture to give Kingston what I believe is the best. I might have to stick up for the choices I make as a parent. I might be misunderstood.
But that's nothing new for me (I can say with a smile.) In high school I felt different with different convictions. I might have tried to be conventional with my choices as I became an adult but I always felt like I was different (as does everyone in their own way, ironically.) When I met Blake we were wrapped up in what we were 'supposed' to be doing at that age. But I think even though it has taken us years to figure out, we both knew we were going to lead a different life then how we grew up. Now, yes, we definitely fit a steriotype: vegan, spiritual, eco concious, new parents, not married, minimal materialism, questioning the government, belief in communal living... one word tries to explain it vaguely: hippy. We aren't composting or gardening yet but you know it's on the dream board. We like to think of it as going back to our roots. Slap a label on us if you like, it definitely makes describing us more simple, but we still feel like it's been hard to find our community, like-minded friends and other hippies.
These changes we have made from how we were raised has all been in discussion with how we can better ourselves and the world we live in for the future generations, for our children. In no way are we angry with our parents for raising us the way they did. We both had very happy childhoods and we were supported in our own ways as we grew. If anything, it has made us more relatable to the world because we were just as much a part of it for nearly 25 years. But from now on we'd like to teach our children and the next gen more about the fundamentals of living like where food comes from, how to use less trash, be brave when exploring, what our carbon footprint is, birth isn't (always) a medical emergency, educate ourselves on what the government is giving us like prescription pills, GMO's, and vaccinations and so on.
Blake and I struggle everyday to balance these things out and we realize we need to lead by example. It is a constant journey to stay educated and positive and determined. This new adventure of parenting is really challenging and absolutely rewarding.
So, Kingston, our growing boy, please just know we are trying our best to give you the best to set you up for the best. "Best" can be a different definition to everyone, but to us it truly is the most simple way of living: celebrate your creator, respect your planet, love your body, nourish your mind & treasure your soul.
"Love, love is the answer. You see? Love. Love is God. That is the solution for what going on. Only God can solve it." Robert Nesta Marley
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