I am not a being living alone, severed from the world.

I am a living being, connected to forces, people, ideas, and energy all around me.

And being interdependent means not that I always rely and depend on others for advice, but I am constantly held up by these strings of love for survival.

Interdependence means community and solidarity, understanding and respect.

Here and now, I want to declare my state of interdependence for motherhood: I am my own person, interlocked in arms of support.  This interdependence has given me strength to reject dream-butchering voices that told me to

…take what I can get and be grateful I got at least that

…do whatever I had to in a relationship to keep it going

…be a stay at home mother

…that I was a bad mother for not being a stay at home mother

…that I was a selfish mother for admitting things other than Isaiah made my heart sing

…that I was a crazy mother for needing time away and actually taking it

…that I was a foolish wife to travel across the globe without my spouse for over two months

…that I should be more grateful that I married a man who happened to be white

…that I would stop questioning everything after I got married

…that I was indecisive because I kept choosing different paths to experience more life

…that I was an egomaniac for pursuing creative non-fiction writing

…that tourist places are the best ways to experience other countries

…that I had to choose between Catholicism and Feminism

…that I had to choose between gender and race

…that I wasn’t Filipino enough without fluent Tagalog

…that restlessness was a sign of depression

…that depression was a sign of abnormality

…that abnormality was something to be ashamed of

…that creativity was a sign of rebellion

…that liberal was the same as radical

…that radical was the same as progressive

…that love was the same as self-forgetting

…that marriage had to be a thing of habit and predictability

…that life had to be a routine of familiarity and safety

…that spirituality had to center on wholeness and ignore brokeness

…that I deserved to be punished for simply living out what I truly believed

…that problems disappear with geography

…that the deepest wounds would come from strangers and acquaintences

…that people give you the benefit of the doubt

…that once you cross the line you can always turn back

…that apologies move the relationship forward

Without interdependence, I would have listened to these voices and believed it, and walked down a path that would have led me somewhere to be less than who I am today.