Motherhood: A discussion on identity

The weaning post is coming along (halfway there) but something has happened today that is too pressing not to talk about.

So today was an important day in moving forward. Yesterday, I was in the doctors with excruciating round ligament pain. Turns out resting while having a toddler to look after is almost impossible being pregnant and my body was telling me to slow down. Today, after lots of rest, my body is feeling better and my mind has shifted. 

Last week, I realised that I haven't had a whole day to myself since Olive was born. That's 19 months. I've only just noticed. 

At the beginning of motherhood, I was breastfeeding round the clock; then, I went to work for a few hours a week so I'd be gone for 3 hours. I'd be back to take over as soon as I returned. Work hat off, mother hat on. We have no nursery but help from Grandparents while I went to work so it was full on. Then there was a third lockdown so we all worked from home: I had even less time to see people and feel like a teacher. Lockdown has definitely exacerbated how motherly I have become. It's become easy for all my hobbies to be centred around the home. I'm now obsessed with growing seedlings and planting them on. I really enjoy being outside and growing things from scratch. Feels like a natural process of how to spend time: focusing on seasons and change. I love this new hobby. 

Old hobbies like netball have ceased during lockdown but my passion towards playing was dwindling before children came along. It's like I was craving a new part of my life to begin. It's like I always knew my life would be centred around the home - but that can be suffocating. I can see why women go back to work. I can see why women think they lose their identity. My 'identity' has evolved and adapted as life has changed around me. I've needed to adapt in order to cope with handling motherhood in this world. It's like a primal source of survival. 

Not only has lockdown enhanced this motherly intuition, it's also created this love for the people around me. I've been amazed by our local markets, by the local women providing meals for us all, by the local pubs helping us when we want a break from cooking, by the Mums we meet in parks who are just about surviving, by the bakers who keep us happy with fresh bread, by the delivery drivers who deliver Olive's new crafty game, but most of all by family and friends. They are the centre of it all. Feeling part of a place. Feeling like you have a place. Feeling like you belong. Feeling like you are home. That's what's important. 

So, my meeting today with a friend has enhanced and opened my eyes to new opportunities on the horizon - all to be revealed soon. It will hopefully be able to encompass my love of literature, education, food, and bringing people together. It will also mean that I can be part of something special. Since I was a teenager, my dream is to have a library cafe. This new opportunity is the closest to this dream that I've ever been and it's unbelievable how life can take these turns and create these paths. 

The point of this blog post was to talk about motherhood and the feeling of identity that women go through. So I guess I've introduced it by discussing how things never really play out the way you think. I discussed with my friend today how I thought I'd work in London, wearing a power suit, and taking the tube. I could still do that if I really wanted but is it me?! Is it a warped idea of how I could be if money and materialistic items were the most important thing to me? Since moving back to Newbury, finally feeling at home with the man I love, I left busy Oxford after 10 years because I wanted to come home to where I belong. I came home to him. We have built our home together. It's tough, it's hard, and it takes a lot of talking and love. As my hobbies and work life evolve and change, I am still the same person. My identity doesn't depend on what job I have or what things I own. My identity is the weird and wonderful person I am underneath all of that. Ultimately, I'm still the little girl, getting lost on the beach, eating a worm. 

Our identity evolves, changes, adapts with the natural flow of life but our core roots stay the same. That feeling of being at home and being 'you' is a release of knowing where you belong. We follow where we think we belong. Our identity also depends on how we display ourselves to others and how others perceive us. Most ideas are usually lost in translation. Our lives are to find people who speak our language, even if we all come from different places of the world. We go with decisions that feel right at the time and then those ideas change and morph into new phases of our lives. Our identity is never lost. It's only meandering down a river waiting to be understood. My identity is constantly shifting between different things and it's taken a while to be ok with that. It's a place of discovery. I wish I could remember what that worm tasted like.

To reflect, I wrote the following in my notes during the first few months of motherhood during the winter of 2019:

"Going back to work:

Working for a place like ****** is somewhere where you get the most from it by putting everything into it. If I only worked part time - I presume it would feel like I don’t do enough. I could try part time with Olive at nursery/Grandparents or I could do tutoring. I don’t know how feeding works. If she weans at 6 months (ish) will she then be on food by September and do nursery provide this or will I still need to be pumping my boobs and breastfeeding?"

Looking back, I clearly didn't realise how dedicated I would have to be to motherhood to be an exclusive breastfeeding mother. You have to be there. A lot. 3 hours was the most I could get to be away when feeding was established. Now, at 18 months, I could manage the whole day as she now only boobs to sleep and has a few comfort cuddles during the night. In my notes above, I also predicted that part time would be tricky. And it is. It was. I'm not sure how I'll go back yet. Like I said, ideas are changing and meandering - waiting to be understood until I'm ready.

My notes continue as follows:

"My identity and going back to work:

Since becoming a mother, I’ve become more rounded and that I’m here for something else - something more important than me. I don’t feel like I’ve lost my identity - far from it. I feel like I’m a different woman in a different chapter of my life. The way we adapt and change is amazing. My teacher personality doesn’t feel too far away but at the moment, priorities have changed. My main focus isn’t the progress of other people’s children: it’s my own. That can be quite self absorbing, though. Constantly worrying about one little lady can be exhausting and you can forget about everything else. I don’t want to forget about everything else - I would like her to be involved in the world and how I like to enjoy it. I look forward to the day when we go to Italy and see her eat a caprese salad while looking out to the sea. I look forward to wintery walks where she stares at the light coming through the trees. More importantly, I want her to have her own beliefs and her own way of navigating the world through making her own mistakes and bad decisions. It’s life. It’s hard work but it’s all in the little things like making a cake on a rainy afternoon or making ‘perfume’ from the roses in the garden.

I don’t know when I’ll go back to work or in what capacity, but I’ll make sure it works for all of us and creates a balance that we all need. I crave to be the teacher I trained to be and to enjoy the looks on faces as they understand how something works. Right now though, my main focus is Olive.

My Maternity Project is an interesting one. I’ve got lots of teaching books that I plan to start reading after Christmas and I’ve got my next meeting with my life coach for the project in mid-December. I’m in touch with Age UK and we’re figuring out how my volunteering will shape around bringing Olive with me to read/see the elder generation in need of company. The realisation of how where you live impacts the way in which you love is phenomenal. I’m so lucky to love in a place that is so supportive of Mums.

I don’t feel like I’ve lost myself and I need to find myself again. I feel I’ve added to my own person, growing into a mother with all the strength I had before. I’ll pick up yoga and teaching again when I’m ready. There’s no rush. I’ll do everything I need to in time. I’d like to just rest and be a mother. I want to take her to all the places I went to but also explore new sights to make memories together. It’s so exciting."

To sum the above, my teaching books are still on the shelf and Olive is thriving. The coaching I received during my Maternity Project (MPTP) - the project that helped inspire me start this blog, was influential to how I am navigating my way through motherhood. I will be working with Age UK as a part of this new collaboration taking part in West Berkshire. 

The important things in life come first and that's love, family, and friends.