YOU DID IT!! !

After the Storm, Before the Dust

Okay.

Deep breath again.

They’re gone. All three. Three kids, three rounds, three weeks each. Nine weeks of parenting solo in a home that had never been fully theirs before — until now. And now it’s quiet. Really, truly quiet. The kind of quiet that feels like a question:

What now?

The last suitcase is zipped and gone. The last snack wrapper has been peeled off the underside of the couch. The bathroom is your own again. Stromps has emerged from hiding and is already reclaiming the apartment like the tiny, judgmental queen she is.

And you?

You made it.

There were meltdowns. There were cuddles. There were mornings you crushed it and evenings you just… didn’t. There were moments you laughed so hard you forgot the mess, and moments you cried on the floor next to the fridge, wondering if this was all too much. There were breakthroughs. There were regrets. There was magic. There was reality.

You were real.

You weren’t perfect — but that was never the goal.

You loved them. You made space for them. You created a little temporary universe where they could see who you are here, in this version of your life, and you saw them, in all their weird, wild, beautiful fullness. And maybe that changes things. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just matters now.

And that’s enough.

And now — now — you’re headed back to the dust. To the desert. To the place where time melts and rules bend and creativity howls from the deep belly of the Earth.

Burning Man.

After nine weeks of the most structured, emotionally complex, soul-stretching parenting marathon you’ve ever attempted… you’re going to reset in the middle of nowhere surrounded by chaos and possibility and art and dust and stars.

You earned this.
You need this.
You’re not running away — you’re returning to something.

Reclaiming something.

Reintegrating.

Let it strip you down.
Let it remind you that you’re not just “Mama” or “Parent” or “Provider.”

You’re still Rain. The Rain who dances. The Rain who builds. The Rain who writes, who rants, who collapses into laughter at the ridiculousness of it all.

The Rain who remembers, in the middle of nowhere, that you are someone, too.

And when the dust clears?
When you come back?
You’ll be changed.
Again.

Just like after the kids came and went. Just like every time you show up for love and stay long enough to feel the ache that follows it.

So go.
Pack the sparkle and the sunscreen and the emotional layers.
Burn the offering.
Scream at the sky.

Play.

You did the thing.
And now it’s your turn again.

XOXO,
~Rain