Weekly letter: Feeling lost in Motherhood
...and everything else. (Free to all subscribers this week!)
How many versions of you are there? (Or, in other words, how many different directions are you being pulled in right now?).
There are of course the many current variations of you - the partner you, the mother you, the daughter, the sister you. The career you. Maybe the ‘stay at home mum you’. The part-time you? The ‘must keep the house clean’ you. The side-hustle you? The ‘just want to sit on my arse on the sofa’ you. The ‘let’s escape and go shopping and drink champagne with the girls all weekend’ you. The ‘I want to change my career’ you. The ‘I finally got everything I wanted’ you? The ‘something’s missing’ you? The “I’ll be happy when…” you.
And then there are the previous versions of you. The young, free and single you. The you who went backpacking around the world. The ‘slimmer and more beautiful than you realised at the time’ you. The ‘you’ who you were with your ex. The naive but fearless you. The full of possibilities you. The you who made mistakes you still regret. The you who made the decisions, right or wrong, which lead you to where you are today.
And then there’s the future versions of you. Who is she? The mother of two, three, four kids you? The ‘started my own business’ you? The ‘big career woman’ you? The you who wishes she made that big life change, way back when you were you now, you?
The possibilities of the different versions of ‘you’ are endless, ever changing, ever evolving. Sometimes overwhelming. I think of it like the rings on a tree trunk, or the layers in a stick of rock. Each one makes up a part of who we are, until we are a whole. But underneath all these versions, what’s left? When we peel them all back - the jobs, the labels - who is in there?
There are two questions I find myself asking - do I like that whole? And when it’s all stripped back, do I like what’s left?
I’ve been feeling a bit lost lately - hence my slightly existential crisis-based weekly letter. I’ve been feeling pulled in so many directions - my attention constantly diverted from one project or responsibility to another - each one representing a part of who I am. A mother looking after my baby. A wife in love with and supporting a highly driven career minded and creative (read: theatrical!) husband. A project manager and interior designer (with no prior experience) of a renovation. A woman making a career comeback. A podcast host. A Wellness Director at a national glossy magazine. An author. A friend without enough time to see her friends. And let’s not forget… Father Christmas!
But underneath these layers of the versions of me, who am I? I look in the mirror and see someone without enough time to even brush her hair. But is that really true? Everyone has enough time to at least brush their hair. So why, with all time that I spread between these different versions of me, am I not allocating any time to being just ‘me’? And if I am feeling lost within it all - within trying to have it all - how can I find my direction if I am not spending any time on the person underneath it all?
The weird thing is, when I think about it, almost every one of these versions of me leads to something or someone outside of myself; my family, the house, a job that earns me money, friends, family - the end goal is almost always to please or achieve something outside of my own body or mind. No wonder I feel lost - it’s impossible to find something that’s become invisible. Each of these current ‘versions of me’ are essentially roles, or responsibilities. They are not who I am.
So where do we, how do we, factor ourselves in? I saw a nice quote by L.R.Knost the other day that read “taking care of yourself doesn’t need to mean ‘me first’, it just means ‘me too’.
So I guess I’ll start there. In all of it, in everything - being me - without labels, without roles or responsibilities, is enough, too.
