These faces. They are my purpose.

Every year, as part of Stratejoy’s Holiday Council – even when unofficially ghosting – I’ve reflected on the past year and set my intentions for the coming year. Less like resolutions and more like core values. Guiding principles in ways of being for the year. A mission statement for my life.

I’ve been rotating between years focused on stretching, reaching, doing the big scary things – or at least making myself admit when I’m avoiding the big and scary – and years savoring, relishing, playing. This balance has helped make small steps toward “my thing” with room to course correct in the forgiving framework of the year’s purpose.

But it hasn’t been enough.

Life is never enough.

As I lie in my husband’s arms this morning reunited from our week apart, I thought, “I will never get enough of this.”

As I drank in the delicious milk breath of my babiest girl, I sighed, “I will never get enough of this.”

As I lay eye to twinkling eye with my first baby girl, whispering in toddler gibberish so not to wake her sister, I knew, “I will never get enough of this.”

This family. Our family.

Your family. This is it.

This is life. This connection. The beautiful, messy, painful, joyful bliss of it. The fragility that quietly walks alongside the feeling of invincibility. This is the purpose.