Where I End & She Begins is a three volume memoir:

Volume one—Where I End & She Begins: Stories of Motherhood after a Loss—our story from the beginning to when my daughter is eight.

Volume two—Where I End & She Begins: Arts, Crafts & Creating Safe Spaces—all light, color and ideas from our adventures.

Volume three—Beyond the Reach: Essays on Motherhood & Self-Rediscovery—a collection derived from some of these blog posts.

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I love writing and crafts. Both have been therapeutic tools to help me engage more deeply in my life as an individual and a parent. To steal and then corrupt a line from Descartes, “I think, therefore I am:” I write, therefore I am. I create, therefore I am.

For the first ten years, I grabbed fragments of time and attempted to capture our lives during full-time parenting. I wrote to my daughter in the first person, mostly in longhand and housed my words with scraps of other memories in large fabric-covered binders.

Now that she is a young adult, our lives do not resemble the early years at all. I have no idea if what I have written ever will have value to her. Even if it does not, I know I transcribed our stories to be shared.

Perhaps there is something here for you on the road of parenting or self discovery.

I hope so.