Re-connecting With the Me Before Kids

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For the last four years, I would joke that we were living “in the trenches” through the births of our two boys. As my youngest is approaching his second birthday, I feel like the insanity of “new mom life” is wearing out and we are finding our new normal. As I come out of these foggy, sleep-deprived years, I’ve been thinking about ways that I can reconnect with my pre-mom self.

I know I’m not the only Mom who has experienced this struggle to “find herself” in the world between diaper changes and play dates. But, I am calling it quits in the hunt for the pre-mama me. As I look at it now, I realize that there is no me then vs. me now. There is just me. My story is amazing, and its filled with ups and downs, and a lot of twists and turns too. And if I ever did find the pre-kids me, I would really, really miss my tiny humans and the person that they have helped me grow into.

As I was hunting for the pre-mama me, I focused on planning regular date nights with my hubby, wine nights with my girlfriends. I hired a personal trainer and spend more time in the gym than ever before. I even booked a trip for my husband and me to go to Austin for our first ever kid-free weekend. Surely we would find our pre-kid selves during a weekend away together.

Before I was a Mom, I was living life as a wanna-be-someday-professional-ish racecar driver. I would spend almost every weekend either at the racetrack or on an airplane. I never stayed in one spot for long. I spent time doing public speaking to people in massive sports arenas, I was publishing blogs about my adventures for the Huffington Post, being followed by camera crews for television shows and signing autographs. It was all fun, but once I met my husband things eventually began to change and we settled down into a much different life together.

It was during our long-awaited trip to Austin and after spending four days without my boys, that I had my huge realization. I don’t actually ever want to reconnect with the me before kids.

My husband and I had a great trip to Austin and I won’t argue that special “us time” will always be important. We had fun exploring the city and driving race cars with our old friends. But knowing everything that I know now the trip seemed, for lack of a better word, empty. The pre-mom me was great. But the version of myself that I am now is even better. I’m stronger. I’m kinder. I’m a harder worker. And between my husband and my sons, I have the three best buddies I could ever ask for.

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