Just a mom

Now that I don’t work outside the home, I fear becoming just a mom. I am many things besides a mother: a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I’m a walker, a sometimes runner, a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast, a homeowner, a reader, a writer, and many other things.

But being a mother seems to overshadow everything else. If I can get all three of us bathed in a day, I feel like I’ve accomplished some sort of feat. I’ve hardly had time to focus on any of the other aspects that make me who I am. I am a mother, sure, but I was a person before being a mother with goals other than getting three people bathed.

I don’t want to neglect that person. And being just a mom is enough to make anyone go apeshit. Trust me, I was feeling that way yesterday when one of them was shrieking and the other one was wailing. So today, I took Holden on a walk to the park. This was my first three-mile walk in months. A couple days ago I finished my first book since Holden was born. I am slowly returning to myself.

And it feels good to be someone else; me still, but not the unbathed, disheveled, stressed out version.