{ guest post: mom-in-a-million on sense of self }

I could not be more excited to feature my Very First Guest Poster Ever today!

Rebekah, from Mom-In-A-Million, is one of my most favorite bloggers. She's smart and funny and she writes poetry to her undergarments. She was also so anxious to finish Twilight that she snuck chapters in the loo.

Talk about persistent!

On top of that, she's got an adorable little boy named C, a fantastic sense of humor and today, she writes all about how she manages to maintain her sense of self while balancing mommyhood, work, and insisting that I move my family closer to her so that we can blog and drink Sofia Coppola wine sippies together.

I have to admit, it would be pretty magical.

Until then, you'll just have to settle for Rebekah's wonderful contribution. Read her here, and then go check out more at Mom-In-A-Million.

Happy Friday!

***

When Jenn asked me to guest post I was all over the idea because I knew that no matter how much my guest post sucks, I could just say “Hey!  Look at Turtle!” and you’d all be distracted by the cosmic cute-ness of her son and not notice that I can’t write a coherent sentence. I also kind of hope you’ll think I’m her because some days, our lives seem so similar that I think I’m her. We’re kind of like internet soulmates who blog every day in our little parallel universe and have imaginary playdates where our boys ride their nearly identical rocking horses and we drink.  Only she stubbornly refuses to uproot her entire life and move halfway up the East Coast to be my neighbor so we can do it in real life. What’s up with that? 

But I’m not supposed to be complaining about my bloggy friend’s (unreasonable) desire to have a life of her own. I’m supposed to be writing about how I maintain my sense of self while also being a fabulous mom.  Well.  I think the first thing we can do is dispense with the word “fabulous”. Because today? I used a sharpie to disguise the fact that there’s a hunk of leather missing on the heel of my shoe.  Because as long as it’s all the same color, no one will notice the divot in the heel, right?  Right? So, let’s just accept that there is nothing about me that’s fabulous and just move along.  Nothing to see here.  And stop staring at my shoe. 

As for maintaining a sense of self…that’s harder.  Because my sense of self is not particularly good.  I mean, which self are we talking about?  The brooding poet of my high school years?  The aspiring actress of my college years and early twenties?  The bleeding-heart non-profiteer of my later twenties?  The painfully intellectual grad student?  The 30-something career woman?  My identity, my image, has changed as many times as Madonna’s, without the massive payout with each transformation. My identity has been fluid and I have found myself shape-shifting multiple times and shedding old conceptions of myself easily and without regret.  

If there was anything discomfiting about taking on the role of mother, it is the permanence of it all. 

From the day two lines showed up on the pee stick, I had to learn to cope with a role on which the curtain will never come down. Motherhood is the last frontier, in a way.  I will ALWAYS be a mom.  There will never be a day when the instinct to mother my child will fade.  Even when he’s 15 and desperately wishes I would get the hell away from him with the camera and last-minute advice, even when he’s a grown man with a family of his own, I will be his mom. And it’s in his best interest to get comfortable with that idea because, astonishingly, I did. In fact, I love it. 

The harder part of the Metamorphesis into Mom is trying to retain a sense of urgency about the things that I must be in addition to being a mother. It’s so easy to let my job take a back burner and forget to schedule time with friends and to stop traveling and not read or see plays or go to museums or any of the million things that I loved to do before I had a child.  It’s shockingly easy to let my marriage become primarily about parenting and less about partnering. And that isn’t good.  It’s important that I remain a person as well as a mother because I’ve met women who didn’t do that and the day their kids went off to college was the day they deflated.  

I also know that centering all my joy around my son is bad for him.  Being the sole source of happiness for his mother would be a LOT of pressure for a kid and would serve only require enough therapy to buy the therapist a new boat sometime in the future. And sorry, shrinks, I’d rather have a mentally healthy son and self than pay for your next luxury vacation. 

So, I’m slowly and carefully taking steps to reacquaint myself with the rest of me, the parts that have been on hold while I adjusted to the earth-shattering love I feel for my son.  I’ve arranged with a friend to exchange babysitting so that we can each have date nights with our husbands.  I joined a book club and actually try to read in the books so I get more than just a girly night with wine out of it. And I’ve started writing a blog, which has given me a creative outlet that works on my schedule and has opened a whole world of real-life events and activities that I can enjoy. 

I’ve also started making it a point to give my son the parts of myself that existed before he did so that we can learn to love them together.  I am trying to share with him my love of books and live performances of music and plays rather than just following his lead and spending my time with him playing trains and kicking a ball, which are his chosen favorites.   

All of it is a work in progress. I’m probably never going to get the balance totally right and I’ll probably deflate when C. grows up and moves away.  But if I’m lucky, I’ll have enough of me left at that moment to be able to find joy in a job well done and enough restraint to not slick down his hair with spit at his college graduation.