In which a Mother has an Identity Crisis

For many years, I had become seated in this thing called motherhood.  It suited me.  It was an insignificant lifestyle.   It was nothing unusual or extraordinary.  I was content with being concealed in mediocrity.   I was living a rather mundane existence.   

In this sort of existence you start have your identity questioned.  Sometimes by others.  But mostly by yourself.  The world views you differently.  Your husband views you differently.  You view yourself differently.  How do you find the essence of who you truly are within the role of being a mother?

My youngest child is in his last year of elementary school.  It is excruciatingly sad to say goodbye to the young child and have them replaced with an older one that doesn’t really need you to do stuff for them. 

I found a pack of photos from about 10 years ago.  I don’t think I had even looked at them since they were first developed.  I had absolutely no recollection of taking them.  I just sat there looking at the photos of my children.  They were familiar ghosts of a past I don’t remember going away.  Who were these adorable little creatures?  It’s like they just disappeared off the face of the earth.  I never even had a chance to say good-bye.  Will this same thing happen in another 10 years?  Me looking back at pictures of my teenaged children and wondering where they are?

You can’t control life.  You can’t control your kids growing up.  You can’t control your neighborhood and where you are supposed to feel safe at home.  You can’t control time passing.  So either you fight against it and bristle in the face of it or you try to make peace with it and accept it.  –And try to find a way to live with it and some aspects of it.

A mother of young children is completely consumed with them and the identity of mother can fill many of the holes or gaps of your former self.  It’s so all consuming.  You go underground for years.  You are clearly devoted to motherhood and yet your children are secretly aging out of the intensive need. 

This is where I find myself now.  Forced to find myself.  I am suddenly looking around like I have woken from a coma saying, “wait!, where am I?  How did I get here?  When did I last do something important?  What now?”

I am full of loss but also seeking to find something.  I fell down a rabbit hole in my early 20’s and all of a sudden I am asking, “How the HELL did I get HERE?  What the hell happened to my body and my face???”

Sure, it’s magical and all that shit, but it’s a constant mind-fuck, identity crisis?  The result of my contentedness?  An uncertainty in what I have to offer.  My hiatus from ‘me’ resulted in a lack of confidence.  Doubt exudes from my pores. 

All mothers, working or stay-at-home, become frustrated by the loneliness of motherhood.  It’s classic to lose yourself in the petty details.  You get so caught up in the frustrations and pressures of daily life.  Small and insignificant things that really seem like no big deal, like sorting socks or folding underwear.  But they start to chip away at your soul.  This chipping away diminishs your ability to focus on almost anything else.  Bigger things, like ideas, or goals or dreams.

So Donna, why such a downer?  What do you learn at the end of the day? It’s so hard to put in a nutshell.  You learn to anchor yourself and know that somehow you are appreciated.  Accept where you are and accept yourself again.

I owe it to myself and my family to feel complete and believe in myself as being more than ‘just a mom’  and to not feel guilty from stringing the words ‘just’ and ‘mom’ together.  I yearn to have a bigger purpose. 

This is where Donna gets her Groove Back.  (Cue the music)