Where has the time gone?

My little blondie is 30 today.

Thirty. The number lands with both weight and wonder, like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through three decades of memories. Tiny socks. Bedtime stories. Laughter that once filled the house like wind chimes in an open window.

And now, silence.

I don’t often speak about this, but she has been absent from my life for 19 months. Ghosted. A word that feels both modern and ancient, like a disappearance without ritual or goodbye.

What did I do?
Was I enough?
Am I good mother?

I’ve stopped asking those questions.

Not because they don’t matter, but because they no longer lead me anywhere new. They circle like moths around an old porch light. Familiar. Exhausting.

What has taken their place is something quieter. More rooted.

Acceptance.

She is an adult. She is living her life. And I… am living mine.

---

Birthdays, I’ve come to realize, are not just for the one who was born.

They belong to the one who became.

Thirty years ago, on this day, I became a mother.

So today, I claimed it as my own.

My personal Mother’s Day.

---

The morning held steady. Grounded. Until suddenly, like weather that changes without warning, the tears came.

Not politely. Not gently.

A storm.

I let it move through me instead of trying to outrun it. I noticed where it lived in my body. My throat tightened first, that place of words unspoken. Then deeper, into my solar plexus, where emotion pools and churns.

I stayed with it.

Because this is the work now.
Healing the mothering wound, not by fixing it, but by feeling it.

And when the storm passed, as storms do, I asked myself a different question:

How can I redefine this day?

---

So I got up.

I stepped into the quiet ritual of care. A shower. An outfit that made me feel like myself again. A touch of makeup, not for anyone else, but as a small act of devotion.

And then… I began to play.

---

I gathered pieces for a tea party, not as performance, but as ceremony.

A table became my canvas.

Macarons lined up like little moons in soft pastels, each one a small celebration of sweetness.

Tea sandwiches, round and simple, like full moons themselves. Cream cheese, cucumber, fresh dill layered on honey sunflower bread. Nourishment that felt gentle, intentional.

Clusters of grapes, green and deep purple, like tiny planets resting beside the bread.

And then the objects that held story.

My mother’s hot chocolate set, something I’ve loved since I was a child, now placed here as a thread across generations. Mother to mother to mother.

A birthday card with an owl wearing a crown. Wisdom, earned not through ease, but through experience. Through loving anyway.

A large tag that read: Forget Me Not.

I turned it over and wrote.

Because even in absence, memory insists on being held.

---

At the center of it all was the mandala.

Bright. Radiant. Alive.

A circle holding a photograph of me and my little blondie, her laughter frozen in time, my arms wrapped around her in a way that feels both distant and immediate.

I brought the mandala to life with color. Warm sunrise tones spreading through the petals, like hope insisting on itself. Blues flowing between the spaces, echoing the throat and third-eye chakras, inviting expression, insight, truth.

As I colored, something softened.

Not erased. Not fixed.

But softened.

---

Nearby, my portable altar held the Libra full moon mandala, surrounded by gemstones, a quiet nod to balance, to harmony, to the ongoing dance of relationship.

Libra asks:
Where can we find equilibrium, even when things feel uneven?

And across from that question stands Aries.

My daughter.

Headstrong. Brave. Unafraid to leap.

She moved to Sweden, stepping into a life where she knew no one. There is a kind of courage in that which I deeply admire. A fire that says, I will discover who I am by going.

That is her path.

And loving her means honoring that, even when it doesn’t include me.

---

As I sat at the table, sipping tea, tasting sweetness, writing, coloring, remembering… something shifted.

Not dramatically.

But enough.

This was no longer a day defined by absence.

It became a day shaped by creation.

---

I had so much fun.

And that might be the most surprising part.

There was joy here. Real joy. In arranging, in choosing, in making something beautiful just because I could.

There was power in that.

A quiet, steady empowerment that said:

I can hold grief and still create beauty.
I can miss her and still celebrate myself.
I can love her deeply and still live fully.

---

At the end of it, I gathered the pieces.

The card.
The tag.
The mandala.

I placed them into my journal, like pressing flowers between pages, preserving a moment that mattered.

---

It isn’t just my daughter’s birthday.

It is my day too.

The day I was born a mother.

And I know this now, with a clarity that doesn’t waver:

I am a good mother.

I have been open. Receptive. Supportive. Loving.

My door will always be open.

Like the moon, constant even when unseen.

---

If this reflection stirred something in you… a memory, a tenderness, a question that hasn’t quite found words yet… you’re not alone.

So many of us carry quiet places within us that are asking to be seen, felt, and gently held.

This is the heart of the circles I host.

They are spaces where you can slow down, listen inward, and reconnect with your own wisdom. Places where nothing needs to be fixed, and everything is welcome. Through creativity, reflection, and soulful connection, we create room for what is ready to emerge.

If you feel called, I would love for you to join me.

Come sit in circle.
Come listen to yourself.
Come remember what already lives within you.

(((soul hugs)))
Kathryn Costa
Instigator of Soulful & Creative Living
True North Arts