Is that a vague title? I think it is. But, I just love Eminem so who cares. It's actually more of a love hate relationship...
Lately I have been feeling super inspired, pretty happy overall, more driven than normal, and just excited about my future and the future of my family. This is weird for me. And I feel like I can credit most of it to one thing: Letting go of the vision I have had of myself over the past ten years or so, and deciding to create a new vision, a new me.
When I first got engaged I feel like I had finally just settled down into the person that I had been trying so long to find, and then I got married. I felt sure of my character and what I wanted to do and what I liked to spend my time doing. I felt sure about the people I was surrounded by and about my friendships. And then, I got pregnant right away. And I think that I can say that was the beginning of the deterioration of the person I had taken so long to finally get to know and understand and love. It was a slow, but sure process. I had all these ideas of what I was supposed to be as a wife and now as a mother. I was working and in school while pregnant, and then also after i had the baby. That was tough for My Man and I. He was also working full time and also doing school. We were living in my sister-in-law's basement, and thinking back on it all and myself, boy was I a mess (sorry Janae!). I felt like I was trying to jump on a bosu ball with on foot, while holding a baby.(That's the best comparison I can think of right now).
The thing is, I knew I was confused about myself as a mother and myself as a wife, but I had no idea what to do about it. I kept feeling like I just needed to get back to the "old" me. The one I knew and felt comfortable in being, but it felt impossible(and, it was impossible), and that is a hard thing to come to terms with.
Two years later, I had another baby. And, I don't say that in a droopy monotonous tone. Even though I was struggling with myself, I always was really excited and happy about making a family with My Man. I love love loved my girls since the second I knew they were in there (though, I can't say I love pregnancy much at all). Everything in my family life was moving forward and being awesome and all that, and overall I was happy, but I felt like I was stuck behind, trying to still find my feet to run up and join My Man and the girls.
This summer is going to be My man's and mine five year anniversary. Entering the big numbers now, yo! Just kidding. I can't believe it's only been five years. Obviously, we still have so much more time to go. But, right now I feel like I am finally finding myself. I have realized the old me is LONG GONE. See ya later, chica. I get to create a new me. The core characteristics all remain, but after becoming a mother, you have a new part of you that needs to be defined. And, that happens with each kid that is born (at least it does for me). I love fitness, and it will still be a huge part of my life, but in a different way. I love writing, but it needs to be different than it was before, so it is going to be. I love music, but I am going to need to find how to bring that into my life in a way that fits better. I love being happy, and I am going to have to re-create what happy is for me, so that I can actually be it.And, I have found so many new things in life that interest me and that excite me.
It only took me five years to realize that I need to stop looking back, and start building a path forward. It only took me losing a part of myself(sorry My Man!) to realize that it is up to me to re-define myself.
So, to all you awesome strong mothers(or anyone, really) out there, struggling to catch a breath and remember who you are, or to even feel like you know yourself and that maybe you are actually on good terms with yourself, you just need to remember, what you were is gone. The questions is, who do you want to be now? What characteristics do you want to keep from before? What new ones do you want? It's a blank slate, baby. And I'm lovin' it.
