Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

by Angela Brown

“You know, it’s okay to be happy and to still have things about your life that you want to change.”

You see, there’s a great secret to motherhood: no matter who you are or who you used to be or who you’d once dreamed you’d become, you were supposed to pretend that your children were enough, that you weren’t multifaceted, and that your dreams weren’t three-dimensional. You weren’t supposed to admit that you had any dreams reserved exclusively for yourself at all.

Sometimes it felt like I’d moved on without me, too, if that makes any sense.

“Thanks,” I told him. “You’re like the human version of an inspirational coffee mug.”

“I don’t want to be remembered as some tired, overbooked, boring suburban woman who never took the damn time to become the best version of herself.”

That was the thing I was learning about death. Once you acknowledged that it was coming, you didn’t have time to feel afraid anymore.

we aren’t born with one life, but with two. The life we live before we understand loss, and the one we finally live once we realize that, despite our many efforts, our life will ultimately end.

Sometimes, you just have to sit quietly with your grief and give it room to breathe. You have to acknowledge that it is a part of you, and that it probably always will be.

There is no such thing as a perfect life. There are only perfect moments.