As a new mom, I have been fortunate enough to find a
group of other new moms that meet every week. We congregate, sit on cushions
on the floor with our babes, and talk. And we talk and talk and talk about everything. I’ve said before that
stepping into motherhood has brought me to my knees, made me cry more than I
ever thought I would, and has sent me on a doozy of an emotional roller
coaster. For all those reasons and so many more, this community of women has
been invaluable to me. It has allowed me to share my insecurities and questions
without fear of judgment. Each week that I go and sit on the floor with Lucy next to
the others, I leave feeling a little more reassured in my work as a mother.
Recently during one group visit, a Mom brought up the
idea of identity. She was struggling with figuring out who she was post-baby,
and Kathy, our ingenious and fearless leader, asked the rest of us how we were
dealing with this idea of identity. I didn’t say anything, but left considering
my new space in this world.
I know logically I’m still me, but even knowing this, I sometimes have a hard time fitting all
the pieces together to make sense. A friend from work texted me the other day
and asked if I was enjoying my time with Lucy, to which I replied “yes, very
much,” but also that right now I “can’t imagine going back to work in March and
having to turn on my teacher brain.” How will I quiet the new mommy brain I’ve
acquired in order to turn on my teacher brain again? It seems impossible
because as of the moment, my mommy brain is what occupies 90% of my life. Then, a few days later, something happened that made me realize the former me is still
there and eventually, it will all fall back together again – I got my period.
Seems like a minor event, but it wasn’t in the sense that it was a clear
reminder that even though I’m now Lucille’s mother, I’m still Ilene.
The best way for me to understand this new identity that
I have, or rather than new, let’s say revised
identity, is to liken it to a prism.
Some time ago, a dear friend of mine was traversing dark days. She sent
me an article she found in an online journal which stated that we, as women are
always “in flux, [we] are changing, [we] are flowing in a new way, and this is
an incredibly powerful opportunity to become new again: to choose how [we] want
to put [ourselves] back together.” It is a powerful idea to believe that we
have the choice how we want to see ourselves and not let anyone else dictate
that for us. The article also goes on to talk about how we are prisms, and why
diamonds are as beautiful as they are – because
they are fractured. Consider a diamond with no cuts, no facets. It would be
dull, no? In order to help myself along this journey, I have taken to thinking
of myself in these terms. I am a work in progress. The me that I knew before
this baby is still there, but stripped down/fractured. Right now my waking
life consists mostly of caring for my daughter, but slowly, the pieces of me
that were, are returning.
Like a choreographed dance, I am learning one movement at
a time. I had a baby. My cycle returned, and in a few months, I will go back to
work adding another piece to this dance. Eventually I will add back things like photography, exercise and cooking meals from new found recipes. Each movement adds another
dimension to the self, another step in choosing how I put the prism of my
identity back together again. Right now that idea of "normal" appears to be far fetched, but I remind myself to be patient. Patient that
in time I will find some kind of new normal and be able to do these things again.
I know it won’t be smooth sailing all the time, and it will never be perfect, but it will be me.
And that
will be okay.
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