Lost in Motherhood

They always say it… I don’t know who “they” are but you hear it. You lose yourself in motherhood. It’s true. It happened. But on the other hand, you hear them say, “don’t lose yourself in mother hood” or “Find time for you.” That’s not possible.

The early mornings, the late nights and all the chaos in the middle. You find yourself counting the hours till bed time and dreading the break of dawn. You stay up late just to find time to do something of your choice, without getting up ever 2 minutes to appease one of the little humans. You’ve become the snack bitch. The maid. The butler. The chauffeur. The servant to the little dictators that now live in your house and take up all of your time.

Life as a mom is hard. To be fair, they do warn you of that. I don’t think a single person on this earth has ever said otherwise. It just seems everything else to do with being a mother is contradictory. There’s no “right” way. There’s no rule book… though they try to write them. It’s all fly by your seat and pray to God you don’t royally fuck them up.

It’s hard but it’s rewarding. All the firsts. All the little hugs and kisses. The sweet moments that keep you frozen, scared to move in fear the moment will fade far too fast. You lock those sacred moments away in a vault in your memory, holding them as close as possible. It’s the moments you see all your hard work pay off. The moment you see your little baby use something you taught them. You see them cheer up a friend. You see them problem solve. You see them setting boundaries and all the hard work of breaking those “generational cycles” is paying off. Raising children is THE hardest job but also the most rewarding. There is nothing that compares to it. Maybe people without kids or people who don’t want kids will never understand why we do it. But I’ll be damned if I were to ever say I wouldn’t do it because I “lost” myself in motherhood. That I “lost” years of my life.

I lost myself in motherhood. That statement may be true. But I could also argue that I found myself in motherhood. I lost who I was before I was a mother. That’s true. But would I still be that person 6 years later if I didn’t have kids? I don’t think so. Would I be who I am right now if I wasn’t a mother? I would also say no. Does that mean I lost myself in motherhood? Here’s a question. Am I happy with who I am and where I am in my life? I will scream to the roof tops, “Hell Yes!”

Growth is inevitable. I have been pushed to my breaking point. I have been pushed out of my comfort zone. I have been pushed in every way. But without that, I wouldn’t have grown. I wouldn’t have done the internal work. I wouldn’t have looked at myself and asked…how can I be better? How can I be the best mom I can be? How can I be the wife my husband deserves?

Let me just say this. Adding more to my plate wasn’t the answer. Trying to juggle everything and then “finding time for myself” in an impossible time in my life… that’s not realistic. I don’t mean impossible, as in bad. I mean impossible as in my time wasn’t my own. I wasn’t going to try and “find” myself again or try to be the person I was before kids. I was just not in a place to do that. Drowning in diapers and potty training, with sleepless nights, a pandemic and then add moving into the mix; it just wasn’t feasible. Raising tiny humans in a world that is built to set you up for failure is no small task.

Maybe some or maybe all won’t agree with me on that. Pushing it down and powering through is usually my go to. Maybe that’s not healthy but also maybe that’s just who I am as a person… to me a few hard years (6 or so to be exact) is nothing when you’re shaping the minds of the future. Six years is a blip in the grand scheme of your life. Now, I know it doesn’t stop at six years. I know you are a mother for life and the work is never done. But in terms of finding out who you are as a mother? Who you are outside of being a mother, and how your relationship works now that you are parents?… Now that we are out of diapers and potty training is done? Now that I’ve gotten my independence back ( or a lot more of it ), I am able to look back. I am able to gain a perspective that was impossible to see even a year ago.

The new year. 2023. It seems we entered a new era without even realizing it was coming. Our youngest is fully potty trained. Our oldest has lost his first couple teeth. And I can’t help but reflect back to even a couple months ago when I was wondering if our 2yr was even close to being interested in potty training… if our 5yr was going to start losing his teeth like his classmates and if I was doing anything right at all.

What I am getting at, is the most famous parenting phrase is correct. “This too shall pass” with “It’s only a season” coming in as a hard second.

I’ll say it again. Parenting is the most difficult job out there. But you won’t “lose” yourself in motherhood, you’ll find yourself. You will grow and with growth there is growing pains. There was a time where I was having an identity crisis. I asked all my friends and family when they think of me what do they associate me with. For example, with my husband I think guitar and singing since that’s his passion. My father would be baseball and collecting baseball cards and so on. Long story short, everyone associated me with “being a great mom”. That realization ate at me for a while. It got me asking, who am I outside of being a mother and wife? What makes me happy? I didn’t have the answer for that. I didn’t for a while.

This realization drove me to dig a bit deeper. I started to look back on my life and ask myself what it was that sparked passion and joy in my life outside of my kids. I realized I need to feel like I was contributing to something. That I had a purpose outside of wiping butts and changing diapers. I decided to go back to work. With that I found a job that I absolutely love. It sparks my creative side and I feel like I’m contributing to the outside world in a way that makes me feel fulfilled. With that I started reading again which made me realize how I stopped reading once we had kids. I forgot how much I absolutely love reading. How I was craving that small quiet escape from the daily hustle and bustle. The time away from screens and noise. The small escape into a world of excitement and adventure.

I found myself again. But you see, if I tried to go back to work even a year earlier, I don’t think that it would have had the same impact. Everything comes in seasons. It all comes at the right time. I think it’s normal to lose who you used to be when you are in the thick of raising your kids. The important thing is to remember it is just for a season. You will come out of it finding a new version of yourself. The woman who pushed herself. Who got up and did the damn thing when you just wanted to curl up in bed and let the day waste away. Just don’t forget, when you feel like you’re drowning in motherhood, when you can finally come up for a breath, you are looking at the “New you”.