Nine years ago, Hailey walked into the room and casually announced:

“Mom, my room is haunted. But it’s okay, he’s nice.”

And that was it. She shrugged, smiled, and skipped away like she had just told me we were out of Pop-Tarts.

Meanwhile, I was standing in the middle of our 100-year-old house, holding myself together by about two threads. It was my first home as a single mom barely two bedrooms, no heat, floors that creaked louder than my anxiety, and walls that probably only stood because I willed them to.

That house wasn’t haunted by ghosts. Not for me.

It was haunted by the what-ifs.

What if I can’t keep this roof over our heads?

What if I fail these kids?

What if I’m not strong enough after leaving the marriage that nearly broke me?

I was raw. Exhausted. And I’ll be honest, I cried a lot in that house. The kind of tears that only come when the kids are finally asleep and the silence gets loud enough to remind you of everything you’re carrying.

And yes…sometimes I wondered what life would be like if I wasn’t a mom. Not because I didn’t love my kids but because I was tired of being strong all the time. We don’t say that out loud often, but I will: sometimes the weight is crushing, and you wonder who you’d be without all the little people who need you.

But then Hailey called her ghost “nice.”

And I realized… maybe not everything lurking in the corners of our lives is there to hurt us. Sometimes the hauntings remind us we’re still here. Still surviving. Still loving and laughing in between the tears.

That house didn’t have heat, but it had laughter. It had bedtime stories. It had haunted-room confessions and the kind of stubborn love that patched cracks better than plaster ever could. It holds memories of us dancing it out and healing old wounds. 

Motherhood is like that.

It’s messy. It aches. It makes you want to run away one moment and laugh until your sides hurt the next. And yet, it’s survivable. Not “pretty bow” survivable. But the kind where you wake up the next day, wipe your eyes, and keep going anyway.

So if today feels haunted, maybe it’s not all bad.

Maybe it’s just the kind of ghost that sits quietly in the corner to remind you:

you are stronger than you think.