To My First Becoming

A Letter To Dakota

I was 20 years old when I became your mother.

I didn’t know then how deeply a heart could love until the moment you were placed in my arms. That kind of love rearranges you. It changes what you’re willing to endure. What you’re willing to fight for. It made me realize, almost immediately, how unprepared I was to teach you some of the very things I still needed to learn myself.

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” — A.A. Milne

I was young. I was unsure. And I carried a fear I didn’t always know how to name. The fear of not being enough. Of not being able to provide. Of failing you as a mother before I even understood what motherhood fully required.

There was criticism. From family. From expectations placed on who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to live my life. I felt the weight of those judgments deeply. I also felt the weight of the dreams I quietly put down, like leaving Mississippi and trying to make it somewhere else, because staying felt safer when all I wanted was to give you stability.

You matured me before I was ready. You taught me patience when I didn’t have much of it. You stirred in me a desire to do life better, even when I didn’t yet know how.

You saw more than I wish you had. You witnessed my struggles with my own mother. You grew up seeing me without a very present father figure in my life. You watched me navigate uncertainty, family tension, and the reality of not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. Still, I tried to be honest with you about the world, while protecting you from the parts that could leave lasting wounds.

Back then, giving you a good life meant nice things. A good environment. A home without drama or chaos. I thought that was the definition of success. And there were moments, quiet and heavy ones, where the pressure of wanting better for you felt unbearable. Moments where the thought of not being able to give you the life you deserved made everything feel impossibly dark. But loving you kept me here. Loving you kept me moving forward.

As you grew, so did our challenges.

We had the usual mother-daughter battles. You wanted to grow up fast. You wanted to experience things I knew you weren’t ready for yet. Boys and sex became points of tension, not because I wanted to control you, but because I understood what was attached to those choices in ways you couldn’t yet see. You wanted to do things your way. And I was trying to protect you from lessons that come with a cost.

Letting go was hard. Watching you become your own person, without my constant guidance, challenged every instinct in me. And then came one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

When you went to Nashville to live with your dad, my heart broke in ways I don’t often talk about. I didn’t want you to feel abandoned. I didn’t want the distance to feel like rejection. But I was in nursing school, and I knew I only had one real chance to see it through. I couldn’t give you the structure and discipline you needed while I was fighting for my future.

I grieved our relationship during that time. I grieved the closeness. The everyday moments. But that distance taught me something powerful. Sometimes the hardest decisions we make for our children are the ones that help them understand how much they are loved. Sometimes stepping back is still an act of care. It taught me to trust myself and to lean on the wisdom of others who hadn’t walked my exact path but had walked long enough to see clearly.

Today, I look at you and see a young woman who is flourishing.

You are resilient. You work hard for the things you truly want. You don’t give up. You are smart, charming, funny, and wonderfully goofy. You are a risk-taker. Strong-willed. And college has given you a deeper sense of independence that has stretched you in all the right ways. You think more deeply now. You carry yourself differently.

I want you to know this. The woman you are becoming is capable. She is strong. She will make a difference in the world around her, whether she realizes it yet or not. I hope you carry my love with you into every space you enter, into every hard decision, into every season that feels uncertain.

I want you to feel proud. Proud of yourself. Proud of how far you’ve come. And certain of this truth. You have a mother who would move heaven and earth to make sure you are okay.

Dakota, you made me look inside myself. You pushed me to become a better woman and a better mother. And I am so grateful that I get to walk this life alongside you.

Loving you was my first becoming.

And it will always be my greatest one.

Until next time, trust the unfolding.