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.

Having it all...?

This is something that I am struggling with - an internal tug of war going on inside me. I'm not sure that statement is true at all. I think it is a myth perpetuated by media. I don't think there is a win-win situation, I think there is always a loss happening somewhere. I think it is all about minimising the loss so that it is not detrimental to either party, baba or mama.

One part of me already wants to be at home, preparing for the baba's arrival, washing everything, arranging the room, packing away the cloths, re-organsing the house to accommodate our new family member. I want to take walks on the beach, sleep too long and generally be at home and nest.  Instead I put on a cute outfit and head to the office.

I think about when the baby finally makes his/her arrival (I am 32 weeks pregnant at the moment and every day feels like a week!) and what I will want to do. In truth, I want to be able to have the option to stay home. I already get jealous of the imaginary people that will look after my baby while I go to the office to type out briefs that add no real value to the state of the nation, or to my soul. I want to be this little person's world, create a bubble of love and family. This I know will mean something, add value, potentially improve the world for the better.

The other part of me hears the directors preparing for my leaving, leaving me out of conversations and I cant help but I feel a pang of "left out-ness". My value, my opinion, my input is already being overlooked and I am still here. I have to push this feeling of ... I'm not sure what it is but I think it something to close to shame...down and remember the bigger picture.

I have tied my identity to the praise I receive at work. I worked hard as a young girl, achieving A's at school. It got me recognised, it got me some attention and it gave me a "thing", a sense of place in this world. I went to university straight after school and continued to push. Having a career was something that my family did not do, for various reasons. My mom had to give up any thought of a career when she fell pregnant with me at 18 and I watched her toil away in a job she hated for most of her life and I was determined not to be the same.

So at 30 I have a successful career path set out in front of me. But now that I have it I'm not sure what it is worth. Did I tie my identity to something worthless merely for the fact that I did want to end up in the same position as my mother? I know I am good at it, but does being good at something mean you should spend your time on earth doing it?

I do think my desire to be a full time mother is stronger than my need to find praise and worth from work. Its a new thought, one I had never considered before but it is growing in strength as I inch closer to due date. That being said, you never know how you will feel once you take an aspect of your life away, especially one that has been such a strong driving force for so long.

So the questions become...Can I give up my worker identity? Can I give up the independence of earning my own cash? Can I give up that feeling of accomplishment and reward I get from work? Can I put our family under the crunch when it comes to money? Can I put the pressure on my husband to earn enough for us both?

I certainly don't have the answers but I am hoping that when the time comes the path forward is crystal clear. That my feelings will be so strong that I wont be able to do anything else.