Sandy Esprit

If there’s one thing motherhood has taught me, it’s that life is all about balance—and yet, I still haven’t mastered it.

I used to believe that if I just worked hard enough, planned well enough, and stayed on top of everything, I could juggle it all: motherhood, work, health, home, and everything in between. But the truth is, no matter how much I try to organize and control, life has its own plans.

These past few weeks have reminded me of that in the hardest way. Dental surgeries. Health scares. Sorting out insurance. Endless emails. Deadlines that refuse to move. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I’m still trying to be present enough to take my kids to the park and give them the space to just be kids.

And here’s where I admit something I’d rather not: I didn’t handle it well.

I snapped. I got angry. My frustration made everyone else upset, too. In my effort to force the “best” outcomes, I overlooked how my kids were feeling. I was so focused on keeping everything on track that I failed to notice that sometimes, the best outcome isn’t the one that looks perfect on paper—it’s the one where my kids feel heard, safe, and loved.

That realization hit hard. Because I know I can’t do better in that department by clinging to perfection. Perfection doesn’t exist. Balance doesn’t mean holding everything together all at once—it means knowing when to let go.

And so that’s where I am right now. Learning to release my expectations. Accepting that I can’t control everything. Choosing presence over perfection, even when it’s messy, even when I stumble. Because at the end of the day, my kids don’t need a mom who has it all figured out. They need me.

Maybe balance isn’t something to be mastered. Maybe it’s something to be lived—day by day, moment by moment. And maybe the best kind of balance is found not in perfection, but in grace.

Because real will always matter more than perfect.