Kate on Out of Context

Recently another twin mom I know mentioned that she saw me out shopping and tried to wave, but realized that I didn’t recognize her. She kindly suggested that she was out of context since we only really see each other at playgroups, and we didn’t have our kids with us. Then she laughingly said, “and I generally feel out of context when I’m not with my kids.” She is wonderful and I hate to use her comment as a negative example; but the truth is I never want to feel out of context without my children.  

It would be so easy to just drift into the ongoing whirlpool of need that they generate. I could lose myself in that quite happily given the rewarding existence of being loved more than anyone by children who are for me, the bright, shining center of the universe. But then I remind myself that Eleanor won’t feel out of context without me when she starts high school, and then college, and then goes to Cacuun for Spring Break, and then gets a beach house for the summer with her friends. I can’t lose myself in my children now, because I’ll be needing that identity back when they leave me to find theirs. 

I’ve increasingly found that a major element of my motherhood experience is being both a mom and just me at the same time. “Just me,” being the side of me that watches me deal with melt downs and tantrums and dance with the Wiggles and walk out of the house wearing unflattering clothes because I’m in a hurry and I’m just going to the Safeway and I don’t have time to indulge in a wardrobe crisis. It’s the objective side of me that does the laughing and the storytelling and remembers to notice every detail of George’s 14-month-old smile because his face will have changed again by the time he turns 2. The mother in me focuses on what needs to be done and really lives in the moment. I need her to take care of my children, but I also need that observer in me to appreciate them. And if I need to have “just me” to laugh about their daily antics now, I’m going to need that same part of myself to help let them go when they inevitably start to grow up.

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Comments

[Candice]

You know, your comment came just in time. I am having an identity crisis of my own since I have been offered a full-time position that would be my "dream job" with my "dream boss" and I sort of have to figure out who I am. I have sort of let my work idenity go, taking whatevert work I can get just so I could be a mom for a while. And while my plan was to wait until preschool to get that back, I may want to push that timeline forward so I can take this job. I do feel out of context at my current job and I wonder if it is time to get that back. Not just for myself, but for my daughter as well so that she sees the other person I am besides just her mommy.

[kirsten]

I really appreciate your insight into identity. Before I got married even, I was fearful of this, because I know so many people who got married and became strange "married" people instead of just themselves, now also married. I know that having children changes everything, and I'm excited about that, but I think it's so important to retain that "self" part of you. Great thoughts on this!