The release of motherhood

I suppose life is always a pattern of gaining and releasing.  But there’s something special about the release of a mother.  As a mother we are always releasing something of ourselves, of our children.  We are always letting go.

Motherhood changes everything!

First we let go of the experiences of youth in order to become and nurture a pregnancy.  We let go of our office or workout room, of the clothes in our closet, of the foods we once loved, of our ideas of exercise.  This is even before the baby arrives.

Then the baby does arrive, and we are filled and blessed and joyous at this change.  We let go of our work, Friday nights out, our relationships as we knew them, healthy habits, sleep.  We release our definition of love, of strength, of happiness, even of decency.  We gain new perspectives of these things, but certainly not without releasing the old ones.  And old habits die hard.

Release is hard.  When we become mothers we lose the old us.  We knew this would happen.  We were told this would happen, yet we have no concept of what it really means until it happens.  Heck, even as I write this, my four and seven year old fighting with each other in the living room, I have no idea what it means.  Sometimes I forget who I was before.  Sometimes I wonder if I ever really knew.  Most often I recognize that I have no idea who I am today, and wonder if I ever will.

There’s a video floating around FaceBook I’ve watched too many times. “Signs You’re a Hot Mess Mom.”  I love it because this is my life.  Some moms seem so put together.  But underneath I bet we’re all hot messes.  Some more so in some ways than others.

Why?  Because we all lose ourselves at some point, but when we become mothers we lose ourselves instantly and completely… and it doesn’t end… ever.

Which leads me to my next point.  If moms are forced to release their “old selves” then there’s another step of release that cannot be overlooked.  It’s the releasing the belief that we will ever understand ourselves or who we are.  Because we won’t.  Not ever.  Because in truth, we probably never really did know who we were.  The difference is that before motherhood there weren’t extremely powerful beings of light, joy and frustration reminding us that we have no idea what’s going on, reminding us how blissfully human we are underneath that put-together exterior.

The truth is our children only stir up our true selves… and as mothers it’s the exterior shell that we release.