Monday's LLL meeting

I was at my monthly La Leche League meeting on Monday, and there was a woman there who was just visiting the states. She and her family live in the middle East while her husband goes to school. Apparently the country they live in there is ONE La Leche League leader. So she is training to become another one. It knocked me out. How amazing is that? To be right there, right there making such a HUGE impact in the lives of all those women. It was really so inspiring, and so motivating. I have been thinking about her and her journey for days now and just really pondering my own path and what I am really truly wanting to do with myself.
For years and years a huge passion of mine, my sort of day dream if we ever won the lottery, was to open a clinic for women and families that offered holistic care options for the poor. Offering midwifery care and doulas and breastfeeding help with IBCLCs, having a place to have LLL meetings and parenting classes, the place would offer whole food cooking classes and have a community garden. You could come in, have your child's eyes checked, sit in on a LLL meeting, work in the garden, take home some fresh food with a recipe on what to do with it, have your child sit in on a story time or an art class while you get a free back rub my a licensed massage therapist. There would be a food bank and weekly community dinners, local people would come and do talks, offer services, and there would be a lending library. There would be mom groups and play rooms for the kids. Maybe even a clothing exchange. I am not really sure what all this has to do with the LLL meeting that I went to on Monday, except that that woman's story reminded me of my dreams.
At the moment I am working on becoming a leader myself, and also becoming a IBCLC. Maybe a childbirth educator with in the next year as well. I just love the idea of working with women, with moms and helping them along this journey of motherhood. I just don't feel we are suppose to be this isolated in motherhood. I think the whole idea of a nuclear family goes against all that even makes sense. Mothering is not a job to be done in isolation, we are suppose to be surrounded by other moms, other families. And yet, here we are. Everyone in their separate houses, living lives of quiet desperation (sorry, a wee bit of Thoreau thrown in there). I have to say my motherhood journey only became more amazing, less exhausting, more uplifting when I found a community of like minded, happy, strong, beautiful families to share it with. Not only have my children gained so much from having all these great people in their lives, but I too, have grown, changed and become so much more than I was before.
I want that for all women, for all families. That feeling of NOT being alone. That is what I feel that one woman will be doing when she goes back home, that is what my lottery dream is also about. That is why I want to become a LLL leader, an IBCLC and a childbirth educator... to offer community to families in a society that doesn't seem to value it so much.