I. AM. A. MOM

Im back on the writing. Its been hard to put the proverbial pen to paper these past few months. I have tried a few times and there seems to be a blank, a struggle to verbalise the shit storm that has happened since i became a mom. Became a mom. I find myself referring to myself in the third person, "mommy is tired" "mommy needs you to sleep hunny" "mommy's gone nuts" just so that it sinks in. I. AM. A. MOM.

What does that even mean?! Firstly its not a noun. Its a verb. It is something that is happening all the time, moving, growing, changing you from the inside, pulling everything apart and not really putting it back together again. Its kind of like spring cleaning; you throw everything out of the cupboards to get rid of crap and put it all back cleaner and neater than before. Except you get nostalgic about the items, pick at the things listlessly then agonise over whether you may need that in some nonexistant future. What started out as an attempt to clean up ends up with you sitting amidst a pile of junk and a much bigger mess than when you started. Right now, Im sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by peices of my old life, the old me, facing parts of myself that are so dusty i barely recognise them, wondering who i am and how to put it all back together again into a better cleaner version of me.

 I am coming to accept that this process will take some time. I am getting to know this "mother" that is me, trying to feel comfortable in this new place i belong. The most striking thing i have come to realise is that being a mom has amplified my insecurities, my weaknesses glare at me in the mirror demanding attention like a pulsing zit. There is no escaping it. You are challenged every minute of every day. You long to know it all, fix it all. You know you cant. You feel immense guilt for that. You tell yourself to be patient but you've gone through life being impatient, patience does not come naturally.

All the qualities i honed at the work place are suddenly rendered useless and actually hinder the mothering process. There is no controling this monkey, no manual, no order, no structure. She doesnt listen to reason, she is not logical. I have officially given up work. I couldn't bare the thought of someone else caring for her, bonding with her, getting all those precious memories.

I am now a full time stay at home mother. I had never really envisioned this for me. Whenever i fast forwarded to where i thought my lfie would end up i saw myself wearing heels running down the hallways of a corporation not wearing pj's baking peanut butter cookies (this is not a metaphor, this was literally what i was doing this morning!)

Since realising i was not to return to work i have gone into mourning; a feeling of sadness and loneliness coupled with restless nights. What am i mourning? Being a part of a team, being a part of the teams' successes and failures, essentially...being a cog in the wheel. I cant believe that would be something i miss but i do. Perhaps because it has been replaced by my ever annoying need to obssess over little munchkin's sleep patterns. How much she sleeps, how she sleeps, how i put her to sleep, where she sleeps. Its all pretty banal and frankly annoying as shit stuck on your shoe. At the end of the day she sleeps when and where she wants for as long as she deems necessary...and truthfully i should be bloody grateful she sleeps through the night giving us all blissful sleep. So let it go!

So now i am part of a two man team - me and the monkey every day battling to overcome my weaknesses, striving to build a world where this mother in me can grow and find shape, chasing the sleep goblins around every corner.

I. AM. A. MOM.