March 7th marked the one-year anniversary of my brother-in-law’s death and these thoughts have been circling my mind since…”what will I leave behind, what will they remember about me when I am gone, what will my legacy be?”

Legacy: a gift by will especially money or other personal property.

Well, my kids are screwed if that’s how legacy is defined! Thanks Merriam-Webster! Definitely no abundance in the bank account or major personal property, so does that mean I don’t have a legacy to leave to my kids? How can a six-letter word weigh so much on my heart?

I flipped over another page of the calendar today and I feel like I am running out of time to figure this out. The most messed up part is that I am 45 years old and yet when my eyes meet my reflection in the passing mirror I see a scared teen not the adult woman, mother, wife, or professional that I have worked so hard to become. Am I the only 45 year old woman that feels this way? Maybe that’s just a question for my therapist…

Back to the original question…what legacy will I leave behind? I don’t know. All I know right now is that I can’t give up on figuring that out because then what am I teaching my kids…give up when it’s hard?!?! Fuck no! Everything I do (or don’t do) is picked up by my kids. That! That is what’s building the legacy! The resilience. The determination. The curiosity. The pain. The joy. The mistakes. All of it!! So I don’t know what exactly that legacy will look like…but for now I will keep laying the blocks with no concrete image of what the end product will look like but knowing the foundation will be strong.

How are you building your legacy?