Life comes at you fast. Sometimes you have to slow down long enough to make sure you don’t miss the

best parts. Motherhood has made me think differently about the woman I’m becoming. My daughter is watching me, not because I’ve asked her to, but because I’m her first example. Before the world gets a chance to tell her who she should be, she’s learning something about being a woman by watching me.

If I don’t speak kindly about myself, how will she learn to speak kindly about herself? If I don’t take care of me, how will she know that taking care of herself matters? If I shrink, settle, or make myself smaller to keep other people comfortable, I can’t expect her to somehow know that she never has to.

The same is true of love. She sees the way her father and I treat each other, and I want her to understand that respect, care, partnership, and kindness aren’t things we owe someone because they’re a man or a woman. They’re things we give because we value the person in front of us. And when it comes to respect, I don’t want her to simply hope for it. I want her to know she deserves it and expect nothing less.

I’m not trying to show her a life without hard seasons. That’s not real. There will always be peaks, valleys, changes, mistakes, restarts, and versions of ourselves we haven’t met yet. What I want her to see is that through it all, you still have yourself to hold on to.

And maybe that’s what I’m learning, too.

The woman I am today won’t be exactly the woman I am tomorrow. I’m still creating her, caring for her, enjoying her, challenging her, and giving her permission to change. Because becoming doesn’t mean losing yourself. Sometimes it means finally getting to know yourself.