If I could write a letter to my younger self about motherhood, I don’t think I’d ever finish it. Not because I wouldn’t know what to say—but because motherhood isn’t something you can fold neatly into advice or steps. It isn’t a recipe, no es una receta. It’s a story that keeps rewriting itself, con cada etapa, con cada lágrima, con cada risa.
Before becoming a mother, I tried to find balance in learning—reading just enough, but not drowning myself in every opinion, every “right way” to do things. I gravitated toward stories that felt familiar: reflections on identity, on the way our parents shape us, on generational wounds we carry without always naming them. I learned that every story matters. Every experience deserves to be told. Y que ninguna experiencia es igual a otra—and that’s more than okay.
Then motherhood arrived, not quietly, but as a transformation. A crossing. A before and after.
I became more intentional—about my time, my words, my energy. Not that I wasn’t before, but something in me sharpened. My awareness stretched wider, deeper. Suddenly, I found myself calling my mom about everything—postpartum questions, baby milestones, little worries that felt big at 2 a.m. And in those conversations, I began to see her differently.
I thought about her as a young mother. Y en su mamá también—both of them becoming mothers too soon, too fast. I thought about what it meant for my mother to immigrate to a new country with nothing—con nada. No language to lean on, no clear understanding of how life worked here, no safety net waiting to catch them. Just resilience. Just instinct. Just love.
And somehow, they made it work.
I think about the kind of exhaustion that doesn’t get named—the kind my mom carried. Long days working beyond eight hours, en los packing houses, en los campos, in jobs that demanded everything from her body. And then coming home—not to rest, but to mother. To cook, to clean, to nurture, to hold everything together. That kind of strength often goes unseen, uncelebrated. But it lives in me now. It lives in how I mother.
Motherhood, for me, has become an intentional way of living. It’s noticing the small things—the way my child laughs, the way they learn something new overnight, the way time feels like it’s slipping and stretching all at once. It’s understanding that this stage, fleeting as it is, deserves my presence.
And at the same time, motherhood is a peeling back. Una capa tras otra. I am constantly rediscovering myself—my gifts, my dreams, my voice—but at a slower, more tender pace. I am no longer moving just for myself. I am modeling a life for someone who is watching everything.
It also means embracing and accepting myself—así como las mariposas monarcas. Like them, I am learning that transformation is not instant; it is a process of becoming. The monarca travels miles, guided by something internal, something ancestral—instinct, memory, survival. And in many ways, so do I. I am learning to trust my own inner knowing as I mother, even when the path feels uncertain. I am learning to honor each stage of growth—mine and my child’s—without rushing what is meant to unfold in its own time.
I hold my son’s hand as he discovers the world, just as I am rediscovering myself within it. Every day, I step into his curiosities, his wonder, his way of seeing things for the first time. Y en ese proceso, me recuerdo: está bien, todo va a estar bien—we are learning together. Creciendo y, poco a poco, aprendiendo a volar juntos.
There is weight in that—but also deep privilege.
Because I know I am part of something bigger. I am breaking cycles. I am choosing differently. Estoy atreviéndome a soñar—not just for me, but for the generations that come after me. And I don’t take that lightly.
I’ve learned to loosen my grip on control. To release the timelines I once clung to. Life, especially in motherhood, doesn’t follow neat plans. It asks for surrender. For softness. For trust. It reminds me that there is room—for mistakes, for growth, for learning as I go.
And I am learning to be okay with that.
To live fully in the process. To honor it.
Porque un día, I’ll look back on this version of me—the tired one, the growing one, the trying one—and I’ll realize…
she was becoming exactly who she needed to be.
