Womanhood is complicated. We are supposed to be soft and caring. We are supposed to be strong and hold our families together with sheer willpower.

It can be exhausting to be the default caregiver, and the role starts long before adulthood. As a child, I was often responsible for my younger siblings, cousins, and even neighbors’ children. It was just an expected fact of life, that as a girl, I would help take care of the other children. It was true for my mother when she was the 5th child of 9, and it was true of my grandmother before her.

Women are expected to be the lighthouses for the people in our lives. We are supposed to stand strong and be aesthetically pleasing no matter what the stormy seas of life throw at us. We are expected to be a safe harbor for the emotions and needs of our siblings and friends, of our partners and children, and eventually of our own parents.

I remember when my first son was born. I held him in my arms, as I recovered from the trauma of an emergency c-section and I thought, “I would do anything for you.” At that moment, I realized I was no longer the main character in my own story. I had become the background. I had become a set piece. I was someone’s mother. Life was his story now. From then on, anything I did or said or accomplished would simply be a line in a story he told to his future partners.

Generations of women in my family have loved the sea, and have particularly loved the coast of Maine. I have spent time in Maine with my paternal grandmother, the aunt who was like a second mother to me, my maternal grandmother, and my mother. There is something about the lighthouses of Maine that always appealed to all of them, and I finally understand what it is.

Women are lighthouses. We stand exposed in any storm to make sure that the other characters in our lives have a successful journey.