The rules of marriage were simple and easy to follow: faithfulness, patience, compromise. But there were no rules to divorce, or if there were, he had not yet discovered them.

Motherhood is a choice you make every day, to put someone else's happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you're not sure what the right thing is... and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.

You're not born with a walk like that. You have to earn it.

Half the time your kids end up hating you for at least 5 of their teenage years[.] And don't ever expect anything so mundane as a thank you