A Juicy, Joyful Life


the Junior League Socialite, the Career Woman, the Stay-at-Home Mom, or The Good Wife? Or was I none of these things? Who was this perfect li’l southern belle with the perfect southern lifestyle? These questions began to stir a part of me that had been silent for


years—a part of me that longed to rebel, resist, and push against the world. My inner Rebel Belle began speaking to me, softly at first, but then she began to rumble and roar. The first step came when, after fifteen years as The Successful


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Career Woman, I asked my then-husband for permission to be The Stay-at-Home Mom. I decided I was tired of dressing up each day to look successful while entrusting my children to someone else’s care. After all, that wasn’t how my southern role models had done it. Permission was granted, and I immersed myself in the country club scene, the social clubs, and the church groups. I car-pooled my children to dance, scouts, baseball, and soccer, just like my southern role models. I was free to live my Perfect Southern Life, and I thought I had it all. But as time went on, I found myself pondering how I dressed, how I decorated my home, how I interacted with my husband. How I was raising my children to live life the way I lived it: racing along in a quest to achieve, possess, and accomplish. And then, one day, I came to a screeching halt and said to myself… “Oh My God—I’ve finally become my mother!” I don’t remember being angry or frustrated by my epiphany,


simply dumbfounded. I was in a Twilight Zone. I laugh about it now, but in that juicy, surreal moment I asked myself the question which should have been obvious all along: “If I’m not my mother, then who am I?”


That question spurred an internal revolution which liberated my


Rebel Belle. That li’l voice I’d squashed and silenced for years suddenly couldn’t wait to break free. For the first time, I unleashed my “rebelicious” spirit, and I gave myself permission to be me—whoever I was. I reveled in my newfound freedom, learning and exploring. This new person was pretty interesting, I discovered. But one day that freedom took me a little too far. The perfect southern belle who’d always lived by the rules found herself in the middle of a love affair.


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