For so long I’ve felt like “just a mom”.
The transition from individual to mother began the moment I became pregnant with my first baby. It is to be expected, of course. A natural blossoming into a role more rewarding and more ravaging than any I had known before. It was amazing and overwhelming all at once.
After the birth of my baby, I felt pieces of me begin to disappear. It was a gradual process, but also all at once in some ways. Over the years, I slipped deeper into the cocoon of motherhood, and I forgot who I was as my own person.
My interests, my passions, my hobbies had all fallen to the wayside as they often do in motherhood. With each passing day, I was less “Mia” and more “Mom”.
Then last February something in me changed. A pre-pandemic invitation to my high school reunion was a wake up call I needed to realize that I didn’t know who I was anymore. Or maybe it was that I wasn’t the me I wanted to be. I had let the essence of myself slip through my fingers as I tried to hold everything else together with a white-knuckled grip.