The version of me Motherhood quietly replaced

You know things will change when you become a mum. You know your life won’t look the same, your body won’t feel the same and your mind won’t think the same. The months of pregnancy slowly ramp up to the pinnacle of childbirth, transitioning you from individual to mother. I prepared myself for all of that. I listened to the podcasts, followed the pregnant mummy influencers and read the books. What I wasn’t prepared for was the slow erosion of the version of me I had built up all these years, from girl to woman. 

Yes, the transition to mother was overnight after childbirth, but my grasp on the person I was before has been a  slow, gradual drift - and I don’t know how to feel about it. 

Hindsight is 20/20

It’s common to say I wish I made the most of everything before I had kids - the sleep, the time, the silence. It was all taken for granted. One thing I didn’t bank on taking for granted however, was having access to the old me. When I look back at the person I was before having my first baby, she’s not only distant, she’s a stranger. 

It’s like thinking back to an old best friend. That best friend you did everything with. You witnessed their worst and best moments and knew them intimately enough to finish each other's sentences. But now, years later, you see that old friend again and they’re totally different. Sure, they look similar enough to recognise but how they talk, their interests, their haircut, their makeup, how they dress, their overall vibe, it’s all different. And the thing is, she’s probably thinking the same things about you. It’s kinda awkward. That’s how post-babies-me feels about pre-babies-me. We're awkward ex-besties that don’t know how to relate to one another anymore. 

Secondhand cringe 

Everyone has that sensation of cringing at their previous, younger self. From small things like fashion choices to the bigger life choices we made, so many things seemed ill informed with our wiser perspectives. Reliving my most embarrassing memories is hardest when it’s 10:56pm and I’m desperately trying to get to sleep. Before-kids-me has her fair share, or maybe the lions share of these moments to reflect on. That’s why before getting pregnant, I did a lot of work on myself. I did the journaling, the professional therapy, following the mindset gurus, purposefully becoming aware of who I was and more importantly, why I was that way. It was confronting, disturbing, freeing and empowering but most of all it was cringeworthy. I had secondhand cringe from my firsthand experiences. 

I dug a lot of deep holes into the painful parts of my life, filled them in and sealed them up with closure.I took ownership of it all, but enduring the playback and dissection of my worst moments sucked. Bearing witness to every undesirable outcome and reckless abandonment of basic tenants like self respect left me feeling gross. It started out as a labour of love that in fact ended as anything but. I’d transitioned to self loathing. That doesn’t mean I hated myself fully, I just lacked any respect for the younger 20 something year old me. 

It was clear I wasn’t proud of myself but I was proud of doing the work to ‘tidy up my own backyard’ as they say. I was taking my mental health into my own hands. I was trying to practice being the type of friend and partner I admired most. I was working on my relationships with family members that had been splintered for years. Instead of lugging around a backpack full of bricks, angry at the world and feeling sorry for myself, I set the bricks down and built something with them instead. And it was working. The headway I made was big but Murpheys Law had other ideas. Just as I was heading in the direction of designing the life I had always dreamed of, I fell pregnant. 

The slow disintegration 

Our intention wasn’t to get pregnant when we did. Yes, we’re grown adults and know how sex works but sometimes the universe has other plans that cancel out your own. I had plans to complete my personal training course, become accredited and start working in my dream field and dream job as a personal trainer. Just as the wheels had gained not only traction but velocity - bang (literally and figuratively), baby number one was in the oven. 

I remember the exact moment, standing in my poorly lit bathroom, hands shaking with anticipation while I looked down at those double blue lines - a positive pregnancy test. Just like that with my little home pregnancy test in hand, I shuffled down the stairs, still in a daze myself to wake my boyfriend (now husband) to tell him that our lives were about to take a sharp left turn. The pivot wasn’t to keep trucking towards the dream job despite being pregnant, it was the opposite. We decided I’d become a stay at home mum. And that’s when the drift started. Drifting away from the woman I had been building up for the past 2-3 years from the rubble my 20’s had left behind. 

At first, the excitement of becoming a mum and starting a family unit of our own overrode any other emotion. Once the baby arrived and the newborn bubble popped, reality did what it does best - it sunk in. This was it, everyday, every night, constant, no break, being a mum was my be all and end all. There wasn’t room for me to pursue anything other than a shower during the in between moments. The work I had done on myself started to dissipate along with the dreams I was working towards like paper slowly disintegrating in a pool of water. Many women will tell you, after having a baby they resent others for what they get to keep while they’re sacrificing everything. I felt that, but the resentment, the rage, the disappointment were all in myself. 

Course correction 

I make it sound as though motherhood stole everything worth having from me, when it didn’t. Without realising, motherhood was the only job that could stretch me towards the values and qualities I ultimately wanted most. It didn’t make me more patient, but it did make me more aware. It didn’t make me less irritable, but it did show me my limits and gave me an abundance of opportunities to expand them. It didn’t always make me happier, but it made me incredibly grateful. Grateful living side by side with resent and disappointment was bizarre and dizzying. My own emotions would give me whiplash. Combined with postpartum hormonal shifts, sleep deprivation and the steepest learning curve I’ve ever attempted, navigating my own mindset felt like I was captaining a ship in pitch black darkness without any lighthouse in sight. But eventually, I figured it out.

The truth was, I’d never had true direction in my life. A goal I wanted so bad I’d sacrifice and work as hard as I had to to get it. Over time, I forgave myself for quitting on my personal training dream and not being the “boss bitch” I thought I had to be. But I still missed building a version of myself who, for once, I’d be proud to claim. So, I started again. This time not building from scratch but adopting a different lens: evolution. 

My goal was to evolve from where I currently was, use being a mum and what my life actually is as the foundation. Because it’s not a shoddy foundation by any means, it just looked different to what I wanted before. I embraced being a mum and took the time to figure out what really makes my heart sing. Gees, that sounds so bloody naff because it’s not even something I would usually say but that’s truly what I wanted. Something that made me feel so fulfilled and passionate that I couldn’t help but pursue it. Was that a big ask? Yea, probably. Did I find it anyway? You’re goddamn right I did. 

Base camp / Day 1 

Okay, so here it is. The heart singing, fulfilling, smile inducing thing I now want to pursue. Writing. The irony is, writing has been something I have loved since a young girl, so it has been there in my back pocket all along. I have memories of creative writing as a seven year old, both in school and at home for fun. The most influential teachers in my schooling years were the ones that taught me about writing and had such a clear and infectious passion for it themselves. But even seven-year-old me thought I couldn’t do anything with it. It’s only in this moment that I realise I crushed my own dream, all before the age of eight. 

Since embracing motherhood, I started the My Motherhood Confessions social media accounts and it opened up parts of me I didn’t even know were dormant. It made me want to express myself in ways I hadn’t dared to dabble in, let alone pursue - both in the form of short form content and writing. I actually find it hard to stop writing because I love it so much. And that has been my sign. Who knew, embracing this life, which I didn’t mindfully choose, would become the discovery tool for writing - the only thing besides motherhood that gives me a sense of true purpose and joy. 

So, I’m not claiming to be a writer (because imposter syndrome and all that) but I’m gunning for it. And as for the pre-babies-me I worked so hard to build? Love her, proud of her but she’s served her purpose. Those old versions of me are a gang of ex-besties I still think of from time to time. But now my world is dominated with the new, passion bound version of myself, who I’m so proud of and excited to become.