Traveling as a Trio and Not Missing My Stepkids

I won’t say I’m not pleased to travel, or to do anything really, without my step kids. Because well, my heart feels full with just my daughter and husband. I am traveling with just my daughter and husband for my husband’s work trip, recovering from a stomach bug and solo-parenting my 19 month old daughter from an Airbnb with no one around while he works long days to provide for us. 

There is so much guilt I still carry around enjoying just my little trio. So much I see I haven’t accepted in myself. I wish I could tell you I didn't, but if I did, I'd be lying to you. I am still on a healing journey of my own with my blended family dynamics, and that's the truth. Sometimes, I find myself comparing myself to others who don’t have blended families— enjoying all their children, no matter what they’re doing. Or worse, I’ll find myself comparing myself to the extended family members who love all the kiddos in my family the same, because it doesn’t make a difference to them who the kids’ mothers are. They’re their grandchildren/nieces/nephews/cousins, so why don't I feel the same?

I’ve carried so much resentment for so long. Truly, no one knows the weight or position of being a step mom unless you are one. And there’s even a divide between mothers and step mothers. I think the hardest position of all is being both a mother and step mother. Because, blatantly before your eyes, no matter what you tell yourself and others...

It’s just downright a different feeling you have toward the child you carried in your womb and your husband’s child(ren) you have chosen to love. I wasn’t prepared for that feeling, and that feeling slowly snuck in and wiggled its way into my heart and turned into resentment. And honestly, I’m still working through it.