There was a terrible tension between my heart’s desire to become an artist, to excel at this in the public sphere and my even deeper, more primal desire to be the “Princesss of Love”—the figure I drew over and over again as a child—to be chosen for love; chosen to bring forth life; to become a beloved wife and mother.

There was a message that told me I had to choose; choose between my authentic self and a self that seemed to garner the most approval from the world; choose between my authentic femininity and a public performance meant to finally prove my competence. Because of the tragic lifestyle choices I had already made, the sin-habits; the folly of a misguided, addicted young woman with a rather gargantuan self-esteem problem, that choice one day meant that I had to go and have an abortion. It was either that, or have my school trajectory and my dreams of being an accomplished or “professional” artist ruined.

And what a tragically false choice it was!

After more than twenty years of personal growth: healing prayer, therapy, group, retreats, rituals, recovery programs, minor exorcisms, all manner of journaling, self-expression and sharing, including processing this intimately with my husband and working through this anew with every pregnancy and birth—I am still learning things about the abortion. I am learning things about the psychic damage this decision has caused me, and about what caused me to make it, even against my heart’s deepest desires, and the wisdom of my better angels. To procure an elective abortion was an act of total self-betrayal—not to mention the betrayal of my own pre-born child, which natural law and all human and maternal instinct requires me, in its undeniable authority, to protect.

And now, as I sit down to carefully examine my situation as an artist in this state of life, struggling to continue an authentic life in the arts, and as a mother, struggling to learn the ways of patience and self-giving love, I am slowly beginning to realize that there is still some kind of false choice being proffered here. There is some sort of repulsive-charge between the ‘self-as-artist’ and the ‘self-as-mother’ images I hold simultaneously in my heart. A mother is supposed to be someone who can’t do art. An artist is supposed to be someone who can’t do mothering. Where did this come from? Is this really true? How can things look different than this?

I do believe this is the real reason I feel the need to do these reflections now. This is a place to begin answering the questions above. There has to be a way to integrate these two opposing self-concepts, to model, even if only for myself, a way of being an artist and a mother.

I practically owe my self-concept as artist to my mother. I may have always been a very nervous person who liked to organize things and collect artifacts. Maybe I would have been really good with decoration, or just an even more hard-driven, frustrated sensualist than I formerly was. But I really don’t think I would have become an ‘artist’ if it weren’t for her. She shaped me into this. I can thank her for helping me to spiritualize my sensuality, to find ways to make something somewhat beautiful, or at least honest, out of my quirks and obsessions.

I can only blame the fallen world for the toxic feminism that told me that being a wife and mother wasn’t enough. Or that being a woman who acts as a woman—who finds glory and exaltation in the role that has brought honor to women in societies across the globe since the dawn of time—was a pitiful and meager goal. Something good enough for the incompetent. For the talentless. For the poor. Can you hear the hiss of the serpent in this? I sure can. Get thee behind me, Satan!

Perhaps my mother passed along some inherited bitterness to me. What mother doesn’t? Perhaps, her naming me “Michael” betokens a certain attitude about the value of being a woman; or the difficulty of being a woman in the world. Perhaps that unspoken attitude settled into my young psyche and mixed around with my innate temperament and circumstances and other messages from the culture around me and brought forth this fruit that looked like self-loathing, and a desire to compete with men for power.

Maybe. I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure out exactly what that woman really thinks or means by what she does and says and I’m still not entirely sure. These are only suppositions. I don’t want to dishonor her here by being uncharitable, or do the silly millennial thing of blaming my parents for everything I am in life. But if there is any truth in these observations, it makes me shudder to think what subtle beliefs may be setting up snares for my own beloved children.

And isn’t that why faith is needed for this work? Only a relationship with the living God could set right the cracks and kinks and distortions my broken personality and damaged soul will inevitably impart to them. My hands are not whole, they are damaged; and my understanding is dim and partial; how can I shape my children any better than I was shaped?

A mother is an artist of souls. These sweet little people are part of me, they come from me, I am with them day and night, and they are as impressionable as soft wax. I tremble with the responsibility I have for shaping their personalities; the trajectory of their lives and their eternal destinies. It is an awful responsibility. Who could care less about some silly scribblings when the wellbeing of the people you love most in the universe hangs on your unspoken attitudes, gestures and words?

Words that are too often spoken without thinking. Or spoken in frustration. My God, how long will my purgatory be, to burn away all the heaviness of my heart in reflecting on my shortcomings as a mother!

But here we need humility. We need trust in God. We need clinging to Him and his Blessed Mother through faith. Mary is the model of Christians. She is the only mother around who could have enough patience to hear all my troubles; who will never grow tired of hearing them, and of advising and consoling me, again and again. She is the truly tireless, faultless mother. She is the selfless mother, as her self is entirely enveloped in Christ, so that she is the perfect mirror of his justice in the form of motherly love. She can help me.

God alone, in his angels and in his saints, can help me get better at this work. And He can also correct my mistakes as I go along.

I am an artist and a mother. These are facts. Let us find out what they mean.