Remembering & Rediscovering Me
Finding Happiness & Learning How to "Have a Fun" in the Messy Middle of Motherhood
Nothing can prepare you for the instant identity shift that comes with motherhood. Oh, but boy do you try. Immediately, after you learn you’re pregnant, you download the apps, set the doctor’s appointments, make the registries, plan the nursery, consider your birth plan, and schedule the birth classes. Practically, you may be ready but, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you’re never prepared for the life-changing transition.
It doesn’t matter if you are a first-time mom, second-time, or even a fourth-time mom, as your family expands and grows, you do too, learning to adapt and evolve with each new addition.
As I was approaching my twins’ due date, I wouldn’t say that I felt prepared, but I felt more confident, capable, and experienced this go around. I successfully kept my toddler alive for a year, but twins? I already knew that postpartum was going to be a whole nother beast. Double the diapers, the feeds, the cries. Scratch that. What I was really in for was triple the diapers, triple the feeds, and triple the cries, as I realized that I was dealing with “Irish triplets” and living the cautionary tale of Three Under Two. If that didn’t take the cake, I spent most days and nights manning the fort alone, as my truck driver husband worked his regional routes. Those days were long and hard. I spent most of that year in survival mode, and as the days faded, I realized that I was fading too.
As the twins’ wake windows increased (iykyk), the amount of time I had to do anything, outside of cooking, cleaning, playing, and changing diapers, decreased, and I found myself coveting the life I once knew. The life where I was in control of how I spent time. The life where I could do the things I wanted and felt called to do.
When you become a mom, it’s amazing how much (unsolicited) advice you receive on how you should take care of your kids and yourself as a parent. What I have found is that good intentions and well-meaning advice can often be translated and received as hollow platitudes:
“Take time for yourself.”
“Make sure you include self-care.”
“Get childcare to take some things off your plate.”
But what happens when self-care isn’t enough? What happens when you don’t have the resources or the “village” that it takes to receive help?
I would bookend my days with self-care-infused morning and night-time routines, making the most of the quiet moments to pour into myself what I could, which wasn’t much. As quickly as those moments started they seemed to end before I could feel truly refreshed. Spending several days out of the week solo parenting without living near many close family and friends left me drained and burnt out. So drained that I became disconnected.
In those moments of disconnection, I turned to social media to numb and distract me from my feelings of overwhelm, discouragement, and disappointment, to only be greeted with highlight reels — family gatherings, trips, brand deals, and sponsorships. It seemed to be everyone else’s winning season and mentally, I couldn’t afford to see anyone else happy. I didn’t even want to talk with friends. Every conversation was just a reminder that I was nowhere near where I wanted to be.
Over time, I had to come to the realization that my situation wasn’t going to change. Not now, at least. But I could. I may not have been in control of my situation, but I was in control of my happiness. If was going to find happiness, I needed to retrieve it. And to retrieve it, I needed to remember it.
What makes you happy?
I found myself asking myself this question to which I couldn’t come up with an answer. To best honest, at the moment, I didn’t know. Up until that point, much of my happiness was determined by my productivity — what I could accomplish, and during this season, I wasn’t accomplishing much. If I was going to be happy, I needed to find what made me happy outside of my morning coffee, routines, workouts, and wine (of course).
What made me happy before the marathon of motherhood? Before I was weighed down by the bills, responsibilities, standards, and pressure. What made me happy in college? In high school? What made me happy way back then?
Well, back then I wasn’t saturated by social media standards and pressured to keep up with society’s expectations. I was free. Free to dream and free to grow and develop at my own pace. I didn’t have social media influencers to remind me of what I was missing or didn’t have. So that became the first go. I replaced scrolling with one of my first loves — reading.
I always loved reading. I loved how you could be transported to another world with words, pages, and your imagination. I used to enjoy reading fiction, but over the years I found myself frequenting more self-help books. While I enjoyed these genres as well, they encouraged my doing rather than being, and right then, I knew I just needed to be. So I added fiction back into my reading rotation and just like that, I rediscovered an old hobby.
During that time, quite a few books started to make their way onto my to-be-read list, one of those books being The Stories We Tell by Joanna Gaines. I’ve always been inspired by the Gaines — their faith, and what they’ve been able to build for themselves. However, their success, like many others, has been a journey. In her memoir, Joanna shares, how she’s had to learn how to own and redeem parts of her own story. As a wife, mother, and business owner, she too had to learn how to honor her purpose while navigating motherhood, and a lot of that looked like not only learning from her own children but her inner child. Learning how to embrace the not-so-perfect parts of her, extending herself grace, but also discovering how to have fun.
As an Enneagram One, fun can be a foreign concept to grasp.
Fun isn’t something to be had until you’ve crossed everything off your list, and even then, there is still the burden of more (productive) things you could do. Maybe that’s why Jo’s mom always encouraged her to “have a fun!” After reading the book turned therapy session, I realized that maybe I should “have a fun” too.
For so long, I held onto the belief that fun was irresponsible, maybe even impractical. When I hear and think of the word fun, it feels so risky, so daring, so… freeing? The word itself carries a lightness that I’ve always craved and envied in others who could dare to be so carefree. I started to think, maybe this is an invitation. An invitation to have fun, remember, rediscover, and enjoy the things that made me, me.
That’s what these last few months have been. I’ve swapped podcasts for audiobooks and nostalgic playlists. In July, I finished the most books I’ve ever read in a month. I’ve planned girls’ nights and solo dates, and I even started organizing my pantry (yes, having an organized and aesthetically-pleasing pantry is fun to me 🙃 )
This journey to remembering and rediscovering me is ongoing, as is this motherhood journey. As I grow as a mother, I am recovering, retrieving, and more importantly preserving parts of myself. The old me isn’t gone. She’s still there, but learning how to grow, evolve, and “have a fun” with every new milestone and transition.
Very well written. It is a long journey to find yourself again. Reading, playing guitar and being in nature are my things that helped bring me back to myself. Great article.