The Day I Stopped Trying to Find the "Old Me"

 It has been 13 months postpartum and yes, my head still messy. 

The initial newborn survival fog has lifted, but now there is this quiet, strange pressure lingering in the background: I need to find myself again. Like now! It's urging me to.

I think it's not just me. So many of us mothers fall into that trap. We steal fifteen minutes whilst our baby naps, keep an eye on the clock, and secretly search for the girl we used to be before motherhood. The one with uninterrupted thoughts, slimmer version of herself, full nights of sleep, and only herself to look after.

We tell ourselves that healing means digging up that old version and piecing her back together, and honestly this episodes does not happen once, twice thrice, but a lot! Like over and over again.

Today, whilst waiting for Idris to wake up, I sat down and started writing:

“I am reprogramming myself. I don’t want to find myself again, because I will never find that previous version. The correct phrase is rebuilding me. An updated version.”

Then I stopped.

Wait a minute.

Pause.

Realisation.

I was completely wrong.

It is not that I shouldn’t find myself again. I have found myself. My mistake was expecting her to look, act, and think the exact same way she did before having a baby.

Shannennnnn, how crazy is that?!

That woman before motherhood never carried a child. She never went through birth, or spent over a year keeping a tiny human alive, or carried the spiritual weight and love of guiding a home.

Why on earth was I trying to squeeze my heart and mind back into a version of me that no longer fits?

No wonder it hurts a lot! It really hurt so much! 

Motherhood didn't take me away. It simply expanded who I am.

The girl I was before has had her chapter. It was a beautiful era of my life journey, and I accept with peace that it has passed. I do not need to resurrect her. 

I can find myself every single day, right here in the quiet corners of motherhood or with chaotic inner dialogue with myself. Sometimes surviving mode a day or two, as long as the house is not burning HAHAHA!

But I will never aim to be the person I was before having a baby! Because that person was merely the beginning of who I was meant to become. I am accepting that it is okay to live normally, and be a normal mother. I am accepting that everyday I might just be learning on how to be a normal mother not perfect, but just a mother. 

Maybe I don't need to have everything figured out. Maybe I don't need to be productive every day, have my life perfectly organised, or wake up one morning feeling like I've finally got myself together.

Maybe some days, being myself simply means being Mami to Idris, being a wife, looking after my home, and allowing myself to exist without feeling guilty about all the things I haven't done.

And maybe, just maybe, I have been so busy trying to find the woman I used to be that I forgot to get to know the woman I am becoming. 🌷





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