I’m Jane Elliott—wife, teacher, writer, mother, former foster parent, and a woman learning to navigate the beautiful and brutal in-between.
Raised in chaos and shaped by the question, “What would my 40-year-old self say?”—I write to make sense of the past and to carve gentleness into the present.
This blog is part reflection, part becoming—a space for grief, grace, and growth.
One birthday, one breath, one brave word at a time.
Image generated with AI to visually supplement personal writing.
Today my son was climbing on a box.
He had his legs hanging off the edge, completely capable of putting his feet on the ground.
He cried out, “HELP!”
We were all busy with other tasks in the house. I could hear it immediately, not a cry of danger but a bid for attention. A check in. Still, without thinking much in the moment, I called back,
“No, you can do it yourself. Put your feet down.”
He did.
Afterward, I made sure to catch his eyes. I smiled. I let him see that I had noticed him all along, that he mattered.
Then he came and joined me in the task I was doing.
Later, as parenting moments often do, it settled deeper.
Parenting has a way of revealing our relationship with Christ when we are not even looking for the lesson. This moment did that for me.
There have been so many times in my life when I cried out for help and felt like God did not hear me. Like my voice did not reach Him. Like the silence meant absence.
But maybe it was not unheard.
Maybe it just was not needed.
Not every help requires rescue. Some moments require footing. Growth. The confidence to realize our feet were always close enough to the ground.
And maybe, this is the part that softens me, God was watching the whole time. Discerning the difference between danger and development. Waiting for me to put my feet down.
And then, once I did, offering the reassurance.
I saw you. You mattered. You were never alone.
With that realization, I bring this reflection to God in prayer.
God,
You are faithful and wise.
You see what I cannot see and know when I need rescue and when I need growth.
You are present in every moment, attentive and loving, never distracted or distant.
Forgive me for the times I have mistaken silence for absence.
For the moments I have doubted Your care when You were strengthening my footing.
For assuming You did not hear me, when You were teaching me to stand.
Help me trust Your discernment.
Teach me to recognize when You are inviting me to step down on my own.
Give me courage to move forward even when I want to be carried,
and reassurance that Your eyes are always on me.
I yield my fear, my timing, and my need for immediate rescue to You.
I trust that You are good, that You are near, and that You are guiding every step, even the unsteady ones.
For as long as I can remember, I wondered what my life would become. Who I would be. Who would love me. What kind of family I would build.
I thought the answers would arrive loudly, like the future finally announcing itself.
They didn’t.
They arrived slowly. Through years of wondering. Through moments of loss and long stretches of hope held carefully.
And then, in the last hour, everything settled. With the birth of my second son at 39. Not early. Not easy. But right on time.
There were no fireworks. Just a small body placed against mine. A cry that quieted something deep and old inside me.
I didn’t know how heavy peace could feel until there was no more waiting left to do.
The dreams I carried for decades are no longer imagined. They are here. They breathe. They sleep. They call me by name.
As a new year approaches, I feel the old reflex rise. The urge to ask, Now what?
But my heart already knows.
Now I stay. Now I soften. Now I tend to what has been given to me.
I share my story gently, not to relive the hard parts, but in case someone else is still waiting. In case they need to know that time is not wasted and that arrival can be quiet and still be holy.
This is the year I stop chasing the fire. I sit beside it. Grateful. Surrendered. My family warm and whole around me.
Because loving my child sometimes means stepping back.
My son asked me to stay home with him for two days, and it absolutely broke me. 💔
The truth is… I don’t always have to send him to daycare, but I do because I know my nervous system can’t hold the 24/7 without slipping back into the generational cycles I’m working so hard to break. I send him because it keeps me regulated enough to be a safe, steady mom not because I don’t want him with me.
I can show up in short bursts with my warmest smile and my best “Mom of the Year” self. But the long days? The nonstop toddler tests? The sensory overload and emotional landmines? That’s where my cracks show. That’s where I feel like I fall short.
And even with daycare support, I still feel like I’m failing.
But deep down, I know this: choosing what protects my capacity isn’t failure. It’s love. It’s responsibility. It’s cycle-breaking in real time, even when it looks messy, imperfect, or not like the mom I imagined I’d be.
I’m doing the best I can with the nervous system I have and my boys deserve that version of me far more than the one who’s drowning. The one pretending or hoping to be someone I’m not.
I hope I’m right… that this limitation is mostly the toddler season. Because I want the summers to come the Nerf wars, the arts and crafts, the little adventures. I want to immerse myself in their worlds.
Right now, though, I’m just holding on. I’m in survival mode.
And I’m sure the unknowing daycare workers mumble about him being there while I’m at home. I get it I was young and judgmental once, too. I used to think I knew what made a “good mom.”
But what I hope they someday realize is this:
Their presence matters more than they’ll ever know.
Their patience, their grit, their hard work the playing, the comforting, the routine diaper changes, the structure, the stability all of it is part of the generational chain-breaking I’m trying to do.
They aren’t “babysitting while I rest.”
They’re helping me raise a child in a way I never experienced growing up.
They’re giving him consistency while I build the capacity to show up for him better.
They’re part of the village I never had.
And that matters more than anyone on the outside could possibly understand.
And if my boys ever look back and wonder why I needed the help, I hope they see it clearly: I chose the village so I could choose them with the gentleness I was never given. That’s how our story changes. That’s how the cycle breaks not by doing it all, but by loving them enough to step back and let us both breathe.
When Holiday Magic Looks Different Than You Imagined
December is here.
The month I’ve been waiting for since that positive pregnancy test back in 2023.
I’ve carried this vision for years: drive-through lights, Santa pictures, Cookie Day, decorating the tree with a tiny human old enough to actually feel Christmas.
Because my own childhood didn’t hand me holiday magic.
It handed me chaos.
And I’ve been slowly, stubbornly teaching myself how to build something softer, something my children can look back on with warmth instead of survival.
But this December isn’t quite what I imagined.
The Holiday Magic No One Warns You About
My two-year-old has been more overstimulated than excited, more overwhelmed than curious.
More big feelings than big smiles.
Not because anything is wrong, but because Christmas is loud, bright, and new, and tiny nervous systems can only take so much.
Tonight, after two hours of trying to settle for bed, he finally found the words behind all the fear.
He asked me, with genuine worry:
“Does Santa live inside our Christmas tree… and say HO HO HO?”
Suddenly everything clicked: the bedtime chaos, the tears, the frantic energy all week long.
He wasn’t “acting out.”
He was scared.
Creating New Traditions, Not Repeating Old Ones
So I told him the truth, or at least the truth that keeps him safe.
Santa doesn’t come inside our house.
Santa uses FedEx.
Presents stay on the porch.
Mommy and Daddy bring them in.
Simple.
Predictable.
Safe.
The kind of reassurance I wish someone had given me when I was small, when I was overwhelmed, silently panicked, and no one cared enough to help me regulate. Instead, they laughed at my fears and teased me for my anxious thoughts.
I watched the fear ease in his shoulders.
He needed boundaries around the magic, not magic running wild in the shadows.
The Part of Motherhood That Doesn’t Get Posted
It still took two hours of off-and-on screaming before he could finally settle.
Two hours of resetting, soothing, starting over.
My husband thought it was “tactics.”
He didn’t see fear. He saw behavior.
But I saw something familiar.
I saw that childhood panic I know too well.
I saw a tiny version of what I lived through, with no support, no soft landing, and certainly no one helping me regulate.
And that’s the part that breaks you a little, realizing you’re trying to build traditions you never had, while parenting a nervous system that mirrors the one you grew up fighting.
This is the exhaustion no one warns you about, the kind that gets into your bones when the night is long and every trigger is loud.
When the Magic Is Just Safety
I’m learning that holiday magic isn’t always the glittery, Instagram-worthy kind I imagined giving him.
Sometimes magic is:
✨ Sitting in the dark beside an overwhelmed toddler until he finally exhales
✨ Reassuring him that nothing scary will enter his home
✨ Choosing connection over perfection
✨ Building new traditions while healing old wounds
Sometimes the real magic is simply loving a child through a season that feels too big for them and breaking a cycle in the process.
The Christmas I’m Still Learning to Build
This December looks different.
It’s harder.
It’s messier.
It’s full of emotions, his and mine, that I didn’t fully expect.
But maybe this is what it looks like to rewrite a childhood in real time.
Maybe this is what it looks like to create holiday memories from scratch, one soft moment at a time.
We’re tired.
We’re learning.
We’re showing up.
And maybe the real magic of this season isn’t what we’ve always seen,
but what we’re brave enough to protect:
human dignity, starting as young as two years old. ❤️🎄
In 2016, we were just a young couple standing under a supermoon. We were two people with more potential than plans, more wonder than certainty. The only thing we knew for sure was that someday, somehow, we wanted to foster. Beyond that, nothing felt certain and nothing was mapped out.
We didn’t know what our marriage would demand from us. I didn’t know that a second marriage could feel safe and steady. He didn’t know the depth of healing he would help make possible.
We had no idea what “home” would look like. We bought a house and made it a home, something stable and secure and all ours.
We didn’t know what family would feel like. We didn’t know how wild and tender parenting would be. We didn’t know how much grit we would need or how much softness we would learn.
And while I was already well into my career, we couldn’t see what seasons of growth we would walk through personally, professionally, or financially.
But here’s what we did know. We loved each other. We believed in each other. We were willing to build something neither of us had ever seen modeled before.
Nearly ten years later, I can say this with confidence. We have lived our vows.
In sickness and in health.
For better or worse.
For richer or poorer.
In good times and bad.
(Thank you marriage counseling 🤭)
I was skeptical. He was steady and confident. He promised me a life that wouldn’t look like the one I came from, a life filled with safety, softness, and partnership. And every single day, in every season, he has poured himself into doing exactly that.
The younger versions of us, standing under that first supermoon, could never have imagined the storms we would walk through. The babies we would hold. The griefs we would face. The mountains we would climb. The joy we would fight for. The growth that would stretch us and change us.
Tonight, as we stand beneath another supermoon, I find myself hoping we are just as naïve now as we were then. Blissfully unaware of all the joy still waiting for us.
There is something sacred in walking forward together. In spending a decade laying a strong foundation. In trusting that the love and grit that carried us this far will carry us into whatever comes next.
Here’s to more years and more moons.
Here’s to showing up when it’s messy and when it’s magical.
Here’s to building a life neither of us knew was possible.
Here’s to doing life, love, chaos, and moon-watching forever. 🤭🌕
I used to think the magic of Christmas belonged to childhood.
To those who grew up with matching pajamas, steady traditions, and stories retold every December without fail.
I used to believe that Christmas magic was inherited, like an heirloom passed down through generations.
But when you grow up without heirlooms, when your memories are marked by instability, unpredictability, or emotional landmines, the holidays do not glow with nostalgia.
They sit heavy.
For some of us, Christmas was not magical.
It was loud.
It was lonely.
It was uncertain.
Every year looked different, and the best we could hope for was that this one might be a little less dramatic than the last.
When you do not come from tradition, you do not step into adulthood carrying recipes, rituals, or warm memories.
You step in carrying determination.
You carry the quiet ache of what you wish you had known.
And somehow, in the most unlikely way, you use that ache as fuel.
That is what cycle breakers do.
We do not recreate something we once loved.
We create something we never had the chance to experience.
And let me tell you, there is nothing effortless about creating magic from scratch.
Christmas, for me, is not made of inherited rhythms.
It is made of rolled up sleeves, late night lists, last minute ideas, and sheer hope.
It is searching for simple traditions, lighting a candle because it feels like something families do, and building a season moment by intentional moment.
It is taking a deep breath and whispering
Let this feel like magic for them.
Even if it never felt like magic for me.
Cycle breakers do not chase perfection.
We chase gentleness.
We chase stability.
We chase moments our children can tuck into their hearts without fear.
And somewhere in the middle of the work, between the wrapping paper and the whispered bedtime stories, a quiet truth begins to rise.
The magic is not found.
It is forged.
It is created in the way we show up again and again, offering our children what we are still learning to offer ourselves.
Safety.
Softness.
Wonder.
So if Christmas feels heavy, complicated, or unfamiliar to you as an adult, if you are piecing it together with willpower and compassion, know this:
You are not doing it wrong.
You are doing holy, healing work.
You are creating the memories your children will one day look back on with warmth.
You are giving them the magic you were never given.
And that is the quiet, powerful beauty of being a cycle breaker.
The traditions you build today become the heirlooms they carry tomorrow.
And this year, as the season begins, I find myself watching two little boys take in the early signs of Christmas with wide eyes and open hands. One is just beginning to notice the lights, asking tiny questions and waiting for a magic he only half understands. The other is nestled against me, unaware of the weight this season once carried, already held in a gentler story than the one I grew up with.
And even now, before the wrapping paper and the cocoa and the chaos, I can feel it happening.
The shift.
The softening.
The quiet proof that the work I am doing matters.
Because the magic does not wait until December twenty fifth.
It shows up in the small beginnings.
In the early mornings.
In the way they throw down and lean in, safe.
In the way they look around, loved.
In the way the season feels steadier in their hands than it ever did in mine.
The magic I never had is already becoming the world they get to grow up in.
And that alone makes every effort, every choice, and every moment worth it.
There are moments in trauma healing that feel like someone has reached into your chest and touched an old bruise you didn’t realize was still tender.
Not to hurt it, but to acknowledge it.
That’s what happened when my estranged brother reached out.
A simple message.
An invitation to meet.
And then the words I never thought I’d see:
“I’m sorry… I hope you can forgive me.”
It wasn’t just a message from him. It was a message from my past.
From a childhood where chaos was normalized.
Where survival was the skill we learned before reading or riding a bike.
For anyone who grew up in trauma, you understand:
childhood doesn’t end when you become an adult.
It follows you.
It shows up in your nervous system, your relationships, your boundaries, your fears, your craving for connection and your fear of it at the same time.
When his message came through, my first reaction wasn’t simple.
It was layered.
I felt nostalgia for the siblinghood I once imagined.
I felt grief for the family we never had.
And I felt dread, because reconnecting, even gently, asks the body to reopen old files it once buried for protection.
But trauma work has taught me something essential:
You can feel compassion without abandoning your boundaries.
You can hear someone’s apology without merging your life with theirs.
You can hold truth and tenderness at the same time.
We Were Children Navigating a Storm With No Lifeguard
For so long, I viewed the pain between us as personal, something he caused, something I carried.
Healing has shifted that lens.
The truth is:
we were two children in a traumatic environment that offered neither guidance nor emotional stability.
He was the firstborn trying to earn love from a mother who didn’t have the capacity to give it.
I was the younger sibling watching and learning in a house built on survival and instability.
Our choices as kids and teenagers were not character flaws.
They were coping mechanisms, understandable reactions of children without safety, structure, or emotional literacy.
That realization didn’t excuse the hurt.
But it helped me understand its roots.
And understanding is one of the first steps toward freedom.
Healing Changes the Story You Tell Yourself
I’ve spent years in therapy.
Years in support groups.
Years working with teens from backgrounds so similar to ours that it felt like watching our childhood unfold in front of me, only this time with adult eyes and vocabulary.
What I learned is this:
Trauma explains behavior.
It doesn’t condone it, but it explains it.
And when you finally see the pattern, the grip of the past loosens.
I no longer hold hate.
I no longer hold blame.
What I hold now is a deep desire for peace, for myself, for my children, even for the ones who hurt me.
Memory Is a Strange Kind of Mercy
In the middle of all the pain, I still remember him trying to protect us.
I remember him standing between us and the neighborhood kids.
I remember him carrying expectations that were far too heavy for a boy his age.
And somehow, healing has allowed me to hold that truth alongside the hurt, not deleting one to make room for the other.
This is what trauma recovery does:
it gives you a more complete picture.
It lets you see the child who was drowning, not just the teenager who lashed out.
It lets you honor the wounded parts of someone without giving those parts authority over your present life.
Boundaries: The Quiet Heroes of Healing
So when I responded to him, I answered with compassion and clarity.
I told him I appreciated his message.
I told him I saw the bravery in reaching out.
And I also told him the truth:
Right now, my emotional bandwidth is limited.
My life is full of tender places, a toddler navigating big emotions, a newborn, postpartum health challenges, a husband with autoimmune issues, and my own cancer recovery.
My response wasn’t rejection.
It wasn’t punishment.
It was protection, of my healing, my stability, and the life I’ve worked so hard to build.
Boundaries aren’t walls.
They’re doors we open intentionally and cautiously.
And sometimes, healing means only opening them a few inches at a time.
Repair Doesn’t Always Mean Reunion
His apology doesn’t erase the past, and it doesn’t guarantee the future.
But it does plant a seed.
A seed of possibility.
A seed of acknowledgment.
A seed of repair, small, delicate, but real.
Trauma healing has taught me that reunification doesn’t have to be the goal.
Peace can happen without full reconciliation.
Forgiveness can be internal and quiet.
Connection can be slow, minimal, and still meaningful.
What matters most is this:
I can honor my story without reopening the wounds.
I can accept his remorse without sacrificing my stability.
And I can allow a small, cautious bridge to form, one step at a time, one message at a time, only as fast as my nervous system feels safe.
This is healing.
Not the shiny, dramatic kind.
But the slow, steady, grounded kind that honors the child I was, the adult I’ve become, and the family I’m building now.
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is answer the past with both compassion and boundaries.
When a single sentence becomes a generational shift
Some stories don’t arrive loudly. They slip in as a line in a report, a pause in a sentence, a moment that settles in your chest and quietly rearranges something deep inside. This week’s Trauma Tuesday is one of those moments—a reminder that healing doesn’t always look like grand revelations. Sometimes it looks like a simple, unexpected sentence that shows the work you’ve done, the work you’re still doing, is taking root in your children in ways you once only prayed for.
We received the OT evaluation for one of my children today.
I moved through pages of numbers and charts,
skills measured and compared,
little boxes checked in tidy rows.
And then
a single sentence stopped me cold:
“Strengths include a supportive family…”
I cried.
Not from fear.
But from the kind of healing that rises quietly
when you realize you’ve become the parent
you once needed.
Because biologically, maternally, generationally
this is a first.
My children get to grow up
in support,
in safety,
in softness.
With parents who show up,
who try again,
who hold space,
who build something gentler than what they were given.
Something I didn’t have words for as a child
but somehow learned how to offer as a mother.
And today on our 8-year anniversary
that line felt like a mirror.
A reminder that even in the mess,
even in the doubt,
even in all we get wrong,
we are doing something profoundly right.
We are breaking cycles.
We are building a new story.
We are showing up.
Presence is our inheritance to them
and it is quietly rewriting everything.
And oh, how often I forget the holiness of that.
If you’ve ever had a moment like this—where healing sneaks up on you in an ordinary sentence—I would love to hear it. Share it in the comments or send a message. Cycle breaking can feel lonely, but we’re rewriting these stories together.
Today, I told my husband to lie to me—and I meant it.
If you know me, you know my number one pet peeve has always been lying. I hate it. I pride myself on honesty, even when the truth is uncomfortable. So for me to actually ask for a lie? That’s not something I did lightly.
I’m in my second pregnancy. Even before this baby, I had gained around 70 pounds since our dating days. My body is softer, my face rounder, my clothes fit differently. And still—maybe especially now—my husband never hesitates to tell me I’m beautiful.
Messy bun, spit-up stains, food on my shirt… even when I know I look exhausted, he’ll look me straight in the eyes and say it: You’re beautiful.
And as much as that should melt me, the truth is… it hasn’t always felt honest. In my head, flattery is lying. It makes me wonder: if he’s lying about this, what else could he lie about? Compliments start to feel like fiction.
But today was different. Today I realized that sometimes the lie isn’t really about the words—it’s about the heart behind them. When he says I’m beautiful, maybe it’s not about my hair or my weight or the laundry on my shirt. Maybe it’s about how he sees me, even when I can’t see myself.
And lately, there’s more at stake than just my reflection in the mirror.
A new school year is about to begin for him at his job, and for me in a brand-new position. We have a toddler in a new stage, a baby on the way, new expenses, new pressures. He’s overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed.
The difference is—he speaks his fears out loud. I swallow mine. I tell myself, It’s all going to be fine. I tell him it’s all going to be fine. Logically, I know it will be. But when he says the very things I silently think but refuse to voice—when I hear them spoken into the air—it’s like my composure shatters. Suddenly, it feels like it could all come crashing down on us.
So today, I told him: If you can lie to me and tell me I’m beautiful in the most beastly season of my life, then you can lie to me and tell me it’s all going to be alright.
Because maybe that’s what love really is—not only telling the truth, but knowing exactly when to speak the kind of lie that holds someone together until they can believe the truth for themselves.
The right lie, in the right moment, can feel an awful lot like faith.
Finding Forty 