Finding Yourself Outside of Motherhood

I think to become a mom means to lose yourself in your new life and the new life that you gave birth to. It is so easy to become lost. The transitioning of your family, the daily routines being molded, changed. The day to day, week to week looking vastly different from the life you once lived. The turning point for me, when I really realized that this life was no longer mine, was when the constant questions of “How are you feeling?” “How are you doing?” slowly turned into “Wow the baby is getting so big, how are they doing?” “Are they OK? Do they need anything?”.

Not that I needed it to be about me because I’m not your average Leo, I don’t want the attention. Yet I realized that I wasn’t at the forefront of anyones mind because now it was the baby. I mean lets be honest, I am not the forefront of my own mind because hello?? I just had a baby, a whole baby. It makes sense right? They’re so new and fragile, they are the light of your life and everyone else’s. These changes seem to pile up like a rolling snowball catching speed until it is massive, overwhelming. Until all of a sudden you are overwhelmed by the changes that have taken place and you finally see them all at once so clearly right in front of you.

Anything that came before is blurry, too far off in the rearview to be recognizable. Including who you were before you were a mom, before you were someones lifeline. When the question of “What do I like? What brings me happiness?” leaves you speechless or stuttering around for a answer that doesn’t feel like a lie leaving your lips. That is how you know you’ve lost yourself. At least for me anyways.

*****Now is as good a time as any to let you know I love being a mom. I love my children. I get frustrated like the rest of them but I LOVE my children and would never change a thing about my life. NOT ONE THING. However, what I am going to change is the narrative surrounding taking time to do things for yourself. Finding things that you enjoy outside of motherhood. To say that it is okay to feel lost, it’s okay to want to find yourself with no guilt attached. That is what this platform is here to do. That is what A Mamas Pursuit is all about. Read on with discretion and love and empathy for the moms in their season of being loved and yet unfulfilled, a caretaker for littles yet incredibly lonely.*****

A Mamas Pursuit was born out of honesty and the need to be open about my struggles. I have connected with moms far more on a level of realness and struggle than I ever have with my picture perfect Instagram feed. I have connected on the struggles, the anxiety, loneliness and all of the things that people are too afraid to talk about for the fear of being condemned for it. Because with being a mom comes an unspoken rule that you can never complain, you can never be sad because you are a mom and those are your babies. I agree, they are my babies but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it can be tough.

To be everything for everyone means that you often get left on the back burner, half of the time not even realizing that you are forgetting to take care of yourself. I decided I was going to take care of myself by giving myself an outlet to be heard, to make sure others felt heard and understood and never for one second feel judged. To let anyone who was willing to stop by and take a listen know that they aren’t alone and there is no guilt in these feelings.

It is okay to take time to do something that makes you happy. For me, it is A Mamas Pursuit. It’s putting out content, posts, authentic captions that are sometimes too relatable. Sharing my day to day, the holidays, my mom finds. That brings me happiness and there is no guilt in that. It is far from selfish to do something that sets your soul on fire. It is actually selfish to not take care of yourself and give yourself something outside of your children, home and marriage to live for, work hard for, love.

I hope you let yourself fall in love with the things that bring you happiness and peace. I hope you create a life in your home for your children that you are proud of while be equally as proud in yourself for creating something you can call your own.

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