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Find the thing that makes you feel more like you

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I’m not me when I’m not writing.

I am on the face of it, but I know there’s a percentage missing. I can’t quantify it exactly, but the longer the gap between writing stints, the bigger it feels. It’s got too big for comfort recently, so I pencilled the last two Wednesday afternoons in to fix that, and this post was the result.

People talk a lot about losing their identities when they have children. About feeling detached from who they were before. And it certainly is a journey. I remember being on the bus not long after my daughter was born and seeing a young woman walking down the road by herself and thinking: How dare you be so free? Who do you think you are?! (I was very tired).

One woman, many titles

But I guess the real question was: Who did I think I was now? The titles are easy enough to work through. I’m a mother, a wife, a copywriter, a daughter, a sister, a friend, my local confectionery counter’s most loyal customer, and more.

But what am I to me? A woman who loves books. Who’s always on the hunt for a bargain. Who likes to eat a Cadbury’s Boost in peace every now and again thanks very much. Who needs to write to feel sane.

I don’t miss who I was before my children were born because if I’m her, I’m not their mum, and I’m not interested in that. There’s a clear line between who I was before they showed up and who I became that day in the hospital back in November 2017. It is the privilege of my life to have stepped across it.

But yes, of course I miss the freedom sometimes. I miss knowing that the toilet door will stay shut when I’m in the bathroom. I miss watching TV shows on a Saturday afternoon that don’t feature animals turning into superheroes. I miss drinking cocktails without fear of the horrific consequences if I’m pulled out of bed at 5am by a child demanding CBeebies.

But I can (and do) live without such luxuries. That was me several versions ago, before I underwent a full systems update that blew my mind (and left quite the scar too). To go back isn’t what I need, I’d lose all my changes.

Rather than a loss of identity, I try and see it as my next iteration. I’ve been reprogrammed to cope with what it feels like to live in my body now. With a heart that lives outside my chest, in the form of two small children. Sometimes it’s cartwheeling across the landing, sometimes it’s drinking fistfuls of water from the toilet bowl. (I have an almost six year old girl and a two year old son. I’ll let you guess who enjoys which activity).

Still you, just with less free time

It’s not my identity that’s gone, but the time to engage with all parts of it. When parenting is proving tricky, which it often does, days can last years around here. But the rest of the time, they speed by inexplicably quickly. Where exactly has 2023 gone? Why isn’t my son tiny any more? Why do I make that sound when I lift him up? I want more time, but that’s not an option.

Because it’s time that allows us to connect with who we are, and to do the things that give us strength. Moments when I get to do my own things – however simple and trivial – make all the difference.

I’ve had ‘Wash make up brushes!’ on my to-do list for months now, and I have finally done it. It’s a tiny job that took about ten minutes. The effect it had on my wellbeing was unexpectedly huge. I became the kind of woman who has clean brushes. And, more importantly, the kind of woman who has time to have clean brushes. I look forward to being her again some time next year.

The problem is that the hierarchy of items on my to-do list is non-negotiable. I don’t even want to shift it particularly (though if somebody else could figure out what we’re going to serve up/scrape into the bin for dinner that would be great). I just want the day to become 30 hours long so I can fit more in, and rest usefully too.

I can tell when I’m feeling detached from my hobbies and positive habits because my social media scrolling goes through the roof. I’m searching for something I won’t find. Some kind of answer or real connection. Some peace (which will NEVER be found in a phone). I’ll give myself mountains of small-scale admin to justify all the scrolling, but what I’m actually doing is ignoring the problem: I need a break.

Hobbies can feel like a holiday

Creativity gives me that. I consider myself lucky that my chosen form of creativity involves writing down what’s in my head as it’s wonderfully therapeutic. It makes me feel calmer too, which has got to be good for the household.

I keep buying and asking for notebooks, despite having more than enough. I think I believe that the more I own, the more time will magically appear in my diary to sit down and be great on the page. It’s not really worked so far, but if you think that will stop me popping Moleskines on my Christmas list, you’re wrong.

I’m doing my best to grab time to connect with my brain beyond my main, beautiful, exhausting job as MUM. To take an hour or so here and there to put pen to paper for the sake of it. I write a lot for work (which I love), so it’s a treat to get to tell my story just for fun.

Mum guilt is real (and unhelpful)

This topic comes up a lot for me in my free writing and my blogs. And I think it’s because I still need convincing that this use of time really is justified. That I am permitted to do something just for me.

My husband goes to the gym and I never question the value of physical fitness. But the things we do for our brains are just as worthwhile. I don’t owe my family every single moment of my time, I owe it to them to model what it takes to be a fully rounded, happy person.

I’ve written it down and I know it’s true, but really truly believing it without guilt is still a work in progress. Perhaps it always will be.

I think half the battle for parents is figuring out what we need to do to connect with ourselves beyond our children, which will then help us connect better with them.

Everybody’s thing will be different and equally valid, and it can take time to determine what it is. Leon likes working out. I like sitting down to work out what on earth my handwriting is supposed to say and then typing it up here.

Both are solid uses of time. Here’s to squeezing a little more in, when the toilet bowl patrol schedule allows.

What makes you feel more like you? I’d love to know.

Loneliness and time alone and how becoming a mum changed my relationship with both

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Our daughter was born and all of a sudden all those moments of time to myself that I’d never realised were such a big part of my day evaporated. Goodbye solitude, I’ve got company.

You don’t appreciate how many parts of your life constitute alone time until they reduce down to seconds grabbed between feeds, cuddles, and attempts to persuade your child not to dive head first off the sofa.

I look back on all those times I went to the toilet without somebody there to squish my tummy. On all those showers I had where I didn’t feel the need to poke my head out of the cubicle every 30 seconds to shout “ARE YOU OK?” to the little person in the cot in the next room. On all those train journeys I spent reading a book rather than supplying snacks to the small dictator in the pram, perched on the edge of my seat, waiting to see which of the items I’ve selected will be deemed acceptable today. (Fruit, mummy? Really? Try again.) Did I appreciate all that freedom? Of course I didn’t.

Nobody appreciates time until something changes your relationship with it, and becoming a parent definitely does that.

But while I find the lack of freedom hard, having such limited windows to myself has forced me to make the most of the time I do have more than I ever did before.

I’ve learnt to snatch moments to myself, however brief. Ten minutes with Friends on in the background while Leon gives our toddler a bath and I cook dinner. Forty minutes on my laptop on a Sunday morning before everybody else wakes up. Thirty minutes slumped on the sofa on a Friday evening in the gap between my return from work and Leon’s arrival with our daughter after nursery. I don’t mind admitting that I LEG IT home for that sit down. You’ve got to get your rest any way you can in this game.

When time feels so precious, you don’t let yourself waste it. I now know just how much it’s possible to get done in half an hour. Want the house tidied, a tray of brownies baked, and a week’s worth of washing put away? Get a parent whose toddler is taking a nap on the case – and they’ll still have time to negotiate you a new mortgage deal, too. I’ve been amazed and delighted by how the limits on my time have helped me focus my mind and get sh*t done, because I simply don’t have time to fanny about.

I’ve also changed how I think about how I use my days off work. I used to think annual leave had to be used for a holiday or a trip away, or at least for a fancy meal out. And of course it’s great to keep some for those treats, but now I also keep a handful to do the things I can’t do the rest of the time. To sit in a café and write a blog. To go to the cinema by myself. To listen to a podcast with swearing in it without worrying that I’m going to damage the next generation.

I adore my girl and value our time together more than anything else in the world. Being her mum is also the hardest work I’ve ever done, so I do my best to take moments to myself where I can, so I can give her all I’ve got when we’re together.

Because we’re together a lot – most of the time in fact – which is exactly how I want it to be. Nonetheless, one of the other things I’ve found most surprising about life as a parent is how lonely it can feel, despite the fact that you’re in company almost constantly.

It’s the weight of the responsibility, I think. On the logistical front, it’s being the one in charge of deciding everything that we’ll do, when we’ll do it, and what we’ll need to have with us so that we survive the day/avoid significant social embarrassment.

And on the emotional side, the desperation that (when it’s just the two of us) only I feel to get things right for her can feel a bit isolating, too. All I want is to make her happy and to create days that make her feel loved, inspired, amused, interested, and, let’s not forget, sufficiently pooped so that she’ll sleep well, for all our sakes. It’s a lot to be responsible for getting out of a day, and when things don’t go to plan – which is all the time, by the way – it can get you down.

I am of course not on my own. My husband is just as much a parent as I am. But for two days of the week, he’s at work and I’m at home looking after our daughter. And on the days when I do go to work, I do the majority of the childcare around it, because he works longer hours than I do. As a result (and because we live in the society that we do), it’s me who takes responsibility for most of the bits and pieces that keep us going day to day. The meals we eat, the endless supply of milk our daughter requires, the admin that gets our bills paid and keeps the roof firmly over our heads, and so many more things that find their way on and off the ever-growing list that lives inside my brain.

I am incredibly happy and grateful for our life and feel appreciated for my efforts, I just sometimes feel a bit alone in my role, too. I expect we both do.

But as our daughter it getting older (all of a sudden she’ll turn two next month) and she’s getting better and better at communicating, she’s taking an increasingly active role in our time together, and it’s making me feel so much more… accompanied in everything that we do.

She can now express opinions (which, of course, can be inconvenient/tricky to manage, but let’s focus on the positives for now, shall we?), so she can tell me what she thinks of the ideas I have for us. The other day I told her we were going to the farm and she said “Yay! Yarm!” and it made the whole trip that bit more joyous because we were in on the decision to go together.

For a while, parenting feels like something you do ‘to’ your child, rather than with them, because you just have to make decisions on your own. It can be a lonely job, being in charge all the time, so it’s nice to start getting some feedback. It’s most definitely not always positive, but when it’s good, it makes the meltdowns worth facing. And every meltdown teaches me more about how to empathise and communicate with a child who still has so little control over her world.

When you’re expecting a baby, you understand that you’ll probably feel pain during the birth, tiredness after sleepless nights, and a relentless need to go for a wee every 20 minutes for the rest of your life, but you don’t think about what responsibility for your child will feel like in practice. I didn’t realise how much effort I’d have to put into feeling content as an individual (as well as a mum), but I’m glad I have as it’s made all the difference.

Though a lack of time to myself can be trying, knowing that I’m making every moment I do get count helps me feel like I’ve had a break, even if it’s a short one. And when the pangs of mum-life loneliness kick in, I’m lifted by how much more confident I now feel to make decisions for us, to try new things, and to talk about what a roller coaster motherhood can be.