Losing Yourself In Parenting
It happens to a lot of people, but they often don’t realize it’s happened, until one day they are standing in front of a mirror, looking at their reflection, asking, “who am I?” I’ve had many moments like this over the last few years. Moments where I will look at my dull, lifeless hair with the 4-inch roots, my pale, makeupless face, those worn out yoga pants, and loose-fitting t-shirts, wondering, “where the fuck did I go?” I think it’s safe to say that parenting is one of the most difficult things a person can do. Learning to navigate the world that you once walked around freely, but now travel with a stroller the size of a school bus, an armful of diaper bags, and a handful of children in tow. Somehow learning to mesh their lives into yours. I am eleven years into the parenting journey, and I’m still trying to figure out how to balance being an amazing mother, while still maintaining a semblance of my former self.
You spend nine long months preparing for the day where you will finally become a parent, telling yourself that you’ve got this, and this is that missing piece to your puzzle.
Unbeknownst to you, while you were at the hospital giving birth, someone came in, flipped your table over, and every single piece of that puzzle went flying into the abyss. Now you get to spend the next eighteen years trying to make those pieces fit together again. And with every subsequent child, that table gets flipped over once more, in which you will tiredly put the pieces together all over again.
Being a mother is one of my favorite things, but I don’t think you can ever fully prepare for how much it’s going to change your life. Not necessarily in a bad way, but there is a huge shift in priority. The two hours that was once dedicated to beautifying yourself for a night on the town, is now reserved for interrupted showers, air-dried messy buns, dinosaur battles, and concerts featuring your least favorite nursery songs on repeat. That late-night sushi dinner is replaced with grilled cheese sandwiches, and the closest thing you get to seeing a new movie is the zombie apocalypse which is bedtime. When the kids are finally asleep, and you don’t have a single ounce of yourself left to give, you and your spouse raincheck Netflix and Chill again, and put your lifeless bodies to bed.
Sometimes I wonder, “what happened to the fun me?”
Then I realize, I’m still fun, just in a different way. My life is no longer about how many shots of banana flavored liquor I can throw back, although there are days where that bottle is screaming my name. Could I benefit from a little pampering and me time? Obviously! I mean we all could. Do I enjoy the days that I finally get to sneak in a hot shower or trip to the grocery store alone? Maybe even a night out with a friend? Absolutely! It’s important to remember to take care of ourselves in order to be better for our children, but my main job now is to put them first and raise them to the best of my ability. The reality is, I haven’t actually lost myself at all, I’ve just passed those pieces onto my children so that they can grow up and be the best versions of themselves. I see a part of me in each of them. Lord help me because they all have my personality, so we are in for a pretty rough ride, but I take comfort in knowing that they are being molded into strong, kind, independent, intelligent, and open-minded people. So maybe someday they can give themselves to their children, if that’s what they choose, and raise them to be warriors too.
