When you “lose” yourself as a parent
Hellooooo. Anyone there??
Do you ever just fin yourself going about your day as if you are watching it on TV? Like you are there but you aren’t “there”. You just go through the motions, go about your routine. Wake up. Do your day. Go to sleep.
Work. Home. Dishes. Walk dog. Play with kid. Bedtime for kid. Eat. Doodle on couch or workout if you can muster the strength. Dishes again. Bed. Repeat.
Do you ever think back and just ask yourself “when did my days come to this?” You are just all of a sudden trying to get through the week in one piece and as schedule oriented as possible to avoid any major detours. Then the weekend comes and you are RUSHING to get everything done in a small amount of time. Groceries. Cleaning. House stuff. Seeing family etc. The list goes on and on. And BOOM. It’s Sunday night and we do it all again.
To some point, I did feel a similar way pre-Elliot however, at least then I had time to think about what I needed to do for myself during the day. Now all my focus is on him first and the rest of us later.
Don’t get me wrong I find extreme joy in parenting. Johnny and I both do. We love it. Makes our days brighter and more fun. Watching him grow and thrive and change it’s just the bees knees.
But I do think, “what about me?”. Pre-Elliot, even during pregnancy, we both were very much into working out and eating well. Johnny ran his first marathon about a month before we had our son. I was active daily. We walked the dog together twice a day. We meal prepped. Ah, the good old days.
Now, it’s different. Not bad. Just different. We’re tired. I know I’ll feel better if I just make activity a priority. It’s getting better now that Elliot is a little bit older. It’s just hard. There’s always something to do, something to clean. Something to read about to make sure we are stimulating Elliot in the right ways. People to see. Family to visit. Work to do.
And somewhere along the way, you kind of just lose your old self. It’s your new normal. At some point I feel like this “go-go-go” attitude, it’s what’s expected of us as parents. And somewhere along the way, you kind of just lose your old self. That person you were before-kid.
It’s temporary, this change. And you at some point will find your “new self”. But the in between time, that’s where I’m at, that’s challenging. When nothing seems to fit, you don’t really know what you want to prioritize yet besides spending time with your kid. There’s never enough time. It’ll come. One day, you will find your new you.
Now that it’s almost May, I’m making a goal to myself to gain a little bit of the old “me” back. I want to be the best parent I can be for Elliot, and that means that I have to start prioritizing myself! We should be adding Elliot into our lives instead of molding our lives just around him. I want him to grow up and see that mom and dad take care of themselves too.
Who’s with me? I’m going to start with setting a few goals, some incredibly attainable (because I’m not interested in not achieving anything haha, start slow people) and some will be more challenging. I’m going to have Johnny keep me accountable.
I know deep down that I will be a better, more patient, more fun, more relaxed mom if I put in some time every day for myself. I owe that to Elliot. I owe that to Johnny and I definitely owe that to Molly (our dog) who all deserve the best version of me.
The year of “ME” starts now. Who’s with me?
