While I have written about my grandest, proudest, most notable accomplishment before, and while I am hoping not to sound like a broken record, today, I specifically want to shout my message from the mountaintop.

And repetition deepens the impression.

To this end, dearest reader, will you indulge me for three minutes as I share with you what I am most proud of in life?

Here goes…

Indeed, I’ve experienced my share of difficulties in life that I have triumphed over. I’ve worked hard, struggled, and pursued my goals with grit and determination.

I have studied at various university campuses and worked simultaneously to finance my tuition at each one.

I have sought and attained higher education. I’ve progressed in my career with the government from Management Trainee to current Human Resources Program Manager.

I’m living in a remarkably beautiful and safe neighborhood in the world-renowned city of San Diego, California.

Still, none of the above accomplishments and successes comes marginally close to my experience of becoming a mom.

Being called mom is my greatest accomplishment and what I am most proud of in life thus far.

My journey to becoming a mom

Plain, simple, and to the point.

Permit me to unpack just how proud I am to be a momma.

Yes, that single-life-defining moment in time when I became a mom will forever be my proudest achievement.

As I write, today I am celebrating my eldest son’s 8th birthday and simultaneously remembering the day and exact moment I gave birth to my precious baby boy.

Most new mothers (I imagine) would experience that overwhelming sense of joy and hard-for-words-to-describe feeling of pure, unbridled love.

Yes, that was my experience — one forever etched in memory.

Indeed, I’ve loved and been loved before, sharing a journey with my dearest college sweetheart husband. Nevertheless, until I became a mom, I never knew my capacity to give love or the extent to which I could experience love.

For me, there’s something unexplainable about parental love; that realization that tiny humans are looking up to me, and their total dependence is on me.

Motherhood has surpassed my expectations and has unleashed within me a sense of purpose, belonging, and resourcefulness I do not recall having prior.

Since becoming a mom, I face each day with a sacred responsibility and a focus-driven zeal with which I pursue life to ensure I am both living and setting an example worth emulating for my children.

In preparing them for this life and eternity, I live to impact their lives and ensure I leave a legacy behind.

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Far be it that anyone thinks I write of an experience and a life filled with perpetual bliss.

I do not.

In the eight years that I have been on this path, motherhood has also taught me one too many lessons and sought to extract from me more than I had within me to give initially.

Operating at an average capacity on virtues such as patience, endurance, and tolerance, I’ve been pushed to limits and tried beyond reasonable measure.

My children have taken me to the stake, where I felt the scorching parenting heat but stopped short of being burned.

Becoming a mom or a parent is not for the faint of heart.

I’ve been tested. I’ve also persevered, endured, and triumphed.

My journey is my own. My experience is personal.

I love being a mom and consider my experience to be highly personal.

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I count my blessings

Sometimes, I awake to tiny hands encircling me, accompanied by the words:

“I love you, mom.”

These experiences, dearest reader, are what I live for. These experiences reaffirm to me that I am blessed beyond measure.

Key Message: We each value and prioritize different things in life. There is no one standard by which we are all being measured.

Count “your” blessings.