Audacious Dreams
Are you a fan of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? I am, and have been from the very first season when her husband asked for a divorce on Yom Kippur.
What a dark and delicious twist on such a bright and shiny love story.
Midge Maisel’s journey toward fame has concluded in Season 5 and I’m inspired that she didn’t give up the fight to be herself. Her journey to be famous ended with the achievement of her dream, although unmarried and maybe estranged from both her children, still laughing with the person who first believed in her, Susie.
In her fictional life, Midge achieved her big and audacious dream by not taking on the daily burdens of caring for others, and charming strangers with her wit, looks and charm. She was a mother not burdened by motherhood.
That’s not what happens to most mothers with big and audacious dreams.
Unlike Midge Maisel, I’m a mother who took on the daily burdens of caring for others and traded my big and audacious dream for motherhood. More surprisingly, I abandoned the person I could have been to become a person I never thought I would be.
Mom
It wasn’t my intention to become a mom. I wasn’t one of those girls who played with baby dolls and dreamed of her future motherhood. A favorite childhood game I played with the neighborhood kids was office, and my role models were Mary Tyler Moore throwing her beret in the air, and Marlo Thomas as that girl living a single-lady life independently.
For me, motherhood looks like one thing but feels like another. I’m a good mom and gave it my full attention and was rewarded with children who have brought music and beauty and purpose to my world.
But motherhood is also a place where audacious dreams are crushed for far too many women.
What I didn’t understand would happen, but can see clearly now did, is that I lost my independence when I invested my whole self in motherhood. I gave up the hard fought for autonomy the women of my mother’s generation thought they had given us, along with the hopes that this freedom would unburden our bodies from our potential.
Unfortunately, that isn’t exactly how it worked out.
My body is not my enemy, although for years it felt like it was. When I was younger my body never seemed enough. I was always trying to make her thinner or fitter or better with the idea that my body’s perfection was the purpose of me.
But once my body created life, while my mind was focused on learning the law and my spirit was holding on for the ride, it destined me to be a caregiver in culture that treats a woman’s body as disposable once a person or two has been produced by it.
It was a twisty ride into motherhood and there were dark days and sadness. But I came through the darkness because the paradox of caregiving is that it is both exhausting and gives purpose to life. If I’d had a different body that couldn’t create life I might never have figured this out; and, if I’d smoked cannabis more when I was younger I probably would have understood this sooner.
A friend once said to me that she was giving up on gardening because, “It was too much work and not enough appreciation.” To me that sounded a lot like motherhood. Caregiving is most definitely - too much work without enough appreciation – but once you cross over into being a caregiver it’s almost impossible to stop caring and doing.
In both gardening and motherhood there is the joy of watching what you have nourished grow and thrive and find delight in the moments of wonder. I had always assumed those were the reasons my friend had tended her yard so carefully all these years, but one day she told me her truth. She confessed she had used the excuse of caring for her garden as a way to get away from her family when her children were young and needy. She didn’t need external appreciation then because the freedom to care for her garden was enough.
And like my friend with her garden, I don’t know if my efforts to share and preserve the stories of the women building this industry are appreciated, yet I trudge on because the freedom to share these stories with you has been enough for the past four seasons.
So, like Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Canna Mom Show will have a 5th Season when we launch again in September 2023 to continue the audacious dream of using The Canna Mom Show to uplift the women building a new world through cannabis.
And to do this, I need your help.
Of course, please keep listening and sharing the stories of the women building the industry in the image of the plant, a caregiver. And please nominate The Canna Mom Show for Best Podcast at MJBizCon at Emjays International Cannabis Awards, the link for nomination is right here!
Thank you for your support.
Thank you for listening.
And thank you for believing that together we can crush the stigma around cannabis and caregivers for good.
Happy Summer!