Rediscovery - A life after Motherhood

Re-discovery seems to be a perfect title for the start of this session of my blog, as it highlights a perfect balance between something that you thought you had lost, or something which has been put to the back of your priority list or wardrobe, only to pull it out years later to realise you had it, and question yourself as to why it ever got put back there in the first place?

Therefore, this is the most perfect word to describe how I felt when the day came, and the realisation settled that my children who I had looked after and nurtured were no longer children let alone babies anymore. They were now venturing out into the world to carve their own path, and no doubt at some point, make their own mistakes and learn how to manage, rectify, and cope with them.

Yet with their landmark now in “adulthood” arriving, it left me unable to understand where I stood in the grand scheme of things. Who was I? What was I meant to do? and what was my role now? It was as it I had lost my identity, having swapped it 18 years earlier for a new identity of “mother” which I have loved and cherished since the moment they were born. The realisation that this identity was changing, my role was changing, and I had no idea what that meant for me or how on earth I was going to make that transition.

The feeling, as I’m sure many of you who have been through this can confirm, is a strange emotion, and one that I had not experienced before. There was a sense of loss or bereavement, yet coupled with the sense of excitement for them, matched with a sucker punch of worry. What if they were hungry would they know to get food? What happens if they hurt themselves? Do they have plasters – best add them to the shopping list just in case, What happens if they feel lonely? – I had best just text them to remind them I’m here if they “just want to talk”. Do they have a coat? What about gloves and a scarf? The list was endless, and at times irrational. With each loaded question or concern the worry became enough to jump straight on my phone and call, text, email, Instagram message – literally anyway I could to ensure that they were ok.

Moving quickly through a range of emotions from worry, frustration, anger and loss, often with no rational reason. It was like my emotions had been put into a washing machine and set on maximum spin.

They often say losing a loved one can bring on trauma, which I completely understood – but the truth of the matter was I wasn’t losing loved ones, it wasn’t as if I was never going to see either of them ever again! In fact one was only 10 minutes down the road, and the other in London, a simple 30-40 minute train ride away. And despite the logical part of me knowing this, it felt like a part of me was missing.

Not knowing what to do to fill the void, this gaping hole in what I can only describe as my soul felt expansive; It didn’t seem to matter what I threw into the void it never seemed to get smaller. I was assured that as time passed, I would feel better about the whole event, but the truth is I didn’t. Weeks passed, and although I gained control of some of the irrational fear it didn’t stop me from feeling genuinely lost and helpless.

It was a few weeks later that I began to realise that I had started to allow this to expand past my individual being and that it was now beginning to affect those around me. I would be constantly tired, and grumpy; Super negative, and whenever the sniff of a disagreement came up with my husband, I launched myself into full on bitch mode. Channelling my feeling of being lost and anxious into whatever the topic of the disagreement was.

It was at this point, during a disagreement for the third time that week about my mood and negativity that I realised after spitting my repetitive mantras such as “I am really struggling with this you know I am, but you wouldn’t understand that!” and “both boys have now left home I feel empty and don’t know what I am supposed to do” that the truth hit me.

Like an illumination I realised that yes, I was missing the boys, and naturally as a mother you worry but the cold hard truth was the fact that I no longer knew what I was supposed to do, or more to the point who I was meant to be.

I had spent so long being everything to everyone, on call 24/7 for whatever motherly chore was required that I had forgotten about me. Who I was, and what my identity outside of being a mother actually looked like.

Don’t get me wrong, we all go through regeneration periods in out life where were stamp our foot, push back against the norm’ and “do something for ourselves” but this wasn’t about taking a day off and heading for a manicure or out for a coffee with friends, this was about a whole change in my life and what did that really mean?

It was time for me to pull myself out of the forgotten pile, dust myself down and try it on for size.

Looking in the mirror

Now this is a part that I really don’t like, in fact if you ever came to my home you would see I have 2 of the smallest mirrors you can find. They are as small as I can possibly go without compromising walking out the house looking like a dishevelled mess. The truth of the matter was, during the process of motherhood, I effectively stopped considering myself as important from what I wore, to what the latest make up fad was. Don’t get me wrong I would make the effort if I was going out out, or on the odd morning where I wasn’t rushing out to rugby or whatever social life and events lay instore for the children that weekend. But on the average day if I reached for a comb, smudged on some cover up, and dragged on some pants from the “I’ll put them away later pile” located at the foot of the bed, I was doing ok. I mean come on, as a mother when have you ever known yourself to be able to shower, and dress without hearing the holla “MUM!” from one corner of the house to another?

But with the boys having now ventured into their own “home stay” there was no-one to interrupt, and no-ones needs to be met before my own, it was time for me to do what I had spend the last 18 years avoiding. Looking at myself in the mirror both physically and metaphorically whilst asking myself “Who are you? And what do you want?” It was time to rediscover what I was all about.

Stepping through the looking glass.

So, after finding myself in a unfamiliar and new lifestyle and after some serious reflection time, a tonne of personal development audio books and inspirational literature I gleaned that there was very little out there to prepare those graduating from motherhood into remote parenthood - a life after children; There for I was on my own.

Slightly petrified but also strangely excited to carve my own way through this unexplored territory I have decided that now is my time to grow and focus on my personal development. To stop putting on hold all of those things that I wanted to do; Take some personal responsibility and re-establish myself in the world as more than just a mum.