Molly Sims recently summed up my feelings on motherhood. She said, “My two favorite things in life are being with my kids and not being with my kids. It’s complicated.”
This statement truly summarizes my feelings on motherhood. Being a mom is not the only thing that can fill my cup. It feels so good to say that out loud, finally. We are conditioned by society to think that sentence should never be said. It is almost as if when you become a mom if your world isn’t your children 24/7, that means you are doing something wrong. I want to work towards breaking that stigma.
My “pre-mom” self is someone who always liked to be out and about with friends, shopping, going to the gym, and just getting up and going at any point without having to figure out any logistics of who was watching my kids.
While that exact person can’t exist anymore, I can have some semblance of her.
I know I’m not my pre-mom self anymore, and I’m also not just an exhausted, overwhelmed mom of three. I have moved past the point in life where my children always need me.
Now that my children are out of diapers, in school and extracurriculars, and have their own (drop-off) social life, I can find a bit of my pre-mom self again. I now have the time to stop at Starbucks on my way to work, get a workout in before they come home from school, and use the time they are in extracurriculars to shop at Target. It is truly blissful.
A day will come when something will remind you that you’re a person and not just someone’s mother.
It’ll wake you up like nothing else has since becoming a mother. I urge you to follow that feeling, make plans that don’t include your children, go out and indulge in things you did as your pre-mom self, and enjoy the reawakening.
