Something very obvious occurred to me...
Dustin and I are the strongest figures that Lily knows, emotionally.
This was a bit of a frightening realization to me and I'm a bit embarrassed as to why this thought even came to me.

I am an Mtv junkie. I watch all of the ridiculous reality shows, (because God knows they don't run anything to do with music anymore), one of which is Teen Mom. The title is self explanatory. It is an AWFUL train wreck of a show, exploiting young mothers to a teenage audience (except me) making motherhood look doable and at times almost easy. I hate the show with a fiery passion for those reasons because I truly believe that it may actually entice young, impressionable high schoolers to get knocked up because, "OMFG Y'all, I CAN BE ON MTV!!!!11", but, I'm feeding the monster by watching this garbage. Don't ask me why.

Anyway, there is a lovely young girl named Leah, I believe, who has twins on this show. In the last episode, one of her twins, at the age of 7 months, was taken to the doctor for a very obvious deformities in her legs and arms. (How on God's green earth this girl did not recognize these deformities before the age of 7 months is well beyond me.)

After the doctor's appointment, Leah and her babies' daddy sat on the bed of their pick up truck  and discusses the stress of what was happening. Leah, clearly distraught with worry, cried on babies' daddy's shoulder and babies daddy said, "You're the mom. You've got to be strong. We are the strongest people in her life. We're all she knows about strength". 

Spoken out of the mouths of babes. Seriously, a seventeen year old made those statements and I, a 34 year old woman, had a fucking revelation. I am Lily's strength. I (and Dustin) are all Lily knows as safety, security, normalcy, and comfort. I am her mom and she will always need me to be strong.

This is scary to me. I am not empowered by this. I am terrified. This is where my over analysis of things and "what if" thinking is a very big detriment. My over thinking goes into overdrive.

I know I can do this and I know I will do this and play this role....but what if there is a situation where I just can't be that strong? I mean, Jesus, I still need my parents for so much, how do I now become...them?? How did my parents make this part look so easy? Being someone's entire strength and support is a tall order. You would have thought that this would have occurred to me before conception. I'm a little slow, perhaps.

A day at a time and a lot of deep breathing.