Assignment # 85036 - I AM Your Mother

They give you a number and hand you off with no user manual. No true road map on how to do any of this - but somehow it instantly becomes who we are and we quickly learn that, through much trial, and much error we will just figure it out, or try to.

I am your mother. Like I mean this is who I am. This is my identity. I found myself randomly thinking about those awful ice breaker activities we used to have to partake in; “tell us a little bit about yourself” “what do you do for fun” - and being an introvert with anxiety I thought about how I would literally have to plan ahead to answer these types of questions and used to ironically think how hard it was to talk about myself. But at least I felt like there was a “myself” - I was thinking that If someone were to ask me these questions right now I would literally have no words to give. I am not sure I even know how to hold a conversation anymore about anything other than my son or being a mom.

On the once a year occasion that me and some mom friends get together without kids we always joke and say “we are having a night out and still only talking about the kids”. There is just something about being a mother that is so completely all consuming. It’s like naturally within us - that nurturing. It’s that same nurturing that helps a woman to feel that becoming a mother is what they were born to do - even if they questioned wanting to have kids. It is that feminine energy we possess. It also gives us this feeling of needing to be a caregiver. This same natural energy within us makes us so hyper focused on fulfilling this role; and only this role. Creating a major loss of identity, mom guilt, overstimulation and a feeling of living in a constant state of survival. As a person who’s typically good with words I honestly am struggling to even put into words this overwhelming feeling of having zero identity of your own and the constant crippling weight of mom guilt. The guilt is so heavy that it stops you in your tracks. It stops you from doing so many things and it contributes to the need to live in survival mode. It’s oppressive.

I remember the first time I read the quote “flamingo mothers lose their beautiful pink color as they raise their babies due to all the love and energy they put into caring for their little ones” and thinking wow what a perfect visual representation of exactly what mothering is and feels like. Your cup is literally empty most days and yet every single day you get up and find a way to fill everyone else’s cup from that empty cup. Because they need you. It’s the reason why some mornings you’re completely tapped out by 8 am and find ourselves yelling or struggling to get through after only being awake for a couple hours (or less). And yet I would not change a single thing about how I parent. I love my child with everything I have even when I have nothing and I put every single need of his above my own and I’m not sorry for that.

That doesn’t mean I am condoning or recommending that all moms should feel so completely void of energy every second of their life that they are just fighting and/or flighting. But for some reason for me it just feels right.  It feels like this is not my time to thrive and it’s my time to put every ounce of me into him. It’s about him and I am his mother. But it doesn’t make this feeling of dealing with loss of identity any easier. It’s truly such an odd feeling.

An “identity” is something I didn’t even think or care about... before I lost it. I never knew I could feel the loss of something I couldn’t even identity with before so deeply. It’s like you are totally ok with, and surrender to giving it up but you also don’t know how to progress each day without it. You’re physically, emotionally, mentally just different forever. And it’s beautiful and hideous and unbearable all at once. As I said earlier I believe that the nurturing and mothering part comes naturally for us; this feminine energy just kicks into full gear the moment that pregnancy test reads positive. What is the harder part, in my opinion, is how to understand and deal with ourselves post child. It almost feels like “postpartum” is not for a limited time, it is forever. It just simply morphs and restructures itself overtime. How do we feed and fulfill the things we need for overserves while also giving everything we have to our kids and fighting off mom guilt at every corner? For so many, including myself, the answer is we don’t.

Does it feel like I’m going around in circles? Because that’s a good representation of the feelings within our own minds. The constant roller coaster and merry-go-round effect of wanting to find ourselves but needing (and wanting) to also pour our entire selves into our children. It’s exhausting. At times it feels unbearable. At times you feel numb. I find myself struggling to navigate my own emotions and endlessly trying to find my way back to a self I once knew or a new, better self I’d like to know.

As a mother, each day I find new areas of myself I need to actively work on in order to be a better mother for him. And also to just be better for me. Most days it feels like we are learning together - and I think that’s ok.

-Kay