I Love You, But Who Are You?

Picture it: 2009. A blonde girl whips through Auburn in her little white BMW and revels in the stereotype. She loves it. She goes to football games, she goes to bars, she laughs off some of the dumbest things she’ll ever do in her entire life in the name of living “the best years of her life” the way she wants to. I don’t know that girl, but I love her.

Because I was her.

Picture it: 2020. A dish-water-blonde “girl” whips into her favorite parking spot in the Publix parking lot with two car seats in the backseat. She revels in the stereotype. She loves it. She goes to class parties, she goes to book club, she laughs off some of the weirdest things she’ll ever see in her entire life in the name of embracing motherhood. The blonde girl doesn’t know this woman, but she’d love her. She’d love the idea of motherhood – although she’d have no idea what shape it could or would take.

The girl that made me into the woman that I have become would be utterly horrified that my vision went sepia-toned. And sideways. And then went totally rogue.

So let me explain.

For 31 years, I’ve been waiting to be this tired version of me. This “I-wear-my-fancy-yoga-pants-to-Publix-but-not-Wal-Mart” woman. I loved this woman for years; ached to be her and had no idea who she was. But I had no idea – NO IDEA – that I’d have to account, ya know – for the actual kids. For the actual humans with brains that aren’t predictable. That have their own wants, needs, fears, bowel schedules. The humans that I’d have to both love fiercely and sometimes wonder – “who are you?!” Even scarier? That I’d have that thought while being the person that knows them best in this world.

If I’m looking at this tiny human and I’m wondering who they are as they come to me to fix this assorted array of bullshit that I am pretty sure I’m not qualified to fix…what does that make me? A bad mom? The wrong mom? No. It makes me an okay mom. A normal mom. The mom that fakes it until she makes it just like the rest of them.

So let’s break this down. We’re humans that went to bed one night and woke up the next day and became a parent – no matter what type of waiting period you had, that’s what happened. And in an INSTANT it all changed. All. Of. It. And just like that – you were a different version of yourself that you didn’t know. Nice to meet you, now worry about this other human forever. You became a version of yourself that a former you loved and a future you would look back with a type of endearing smirk (because the new-parent-you had no idea what future-you would come to know).

So let’s talk about future-you. Future you has seen things they’d never imagine. Some of us lost children or parents. Some of us would suffer PPD. Some of us would struggle with parenthood more than they realized they ever could. Some of us have more than one child. We all have our journey. Defining anybody else’s isn’t my goal, so forgive me for omitting any specifics for any one person here.

But I digress.

Future-you looks back on younger-you and probably wishes they could go back – but (truly) they can’t imagine such a carefree, casual existence. They don’t know who they were before they were a parent. But you’ll be damned if you don’t love the casual “you.”

Future-you knows that younger-you looked to this version of yourself and wished for it – either you wished for potty training to be over or wished for your child to pass a certain stage or wished for sleep (ha!! Let me know if you figure that one out, k?) – and you didn’t know the parent you’d be when you got there, but man you loved that person. Because that person had arrived.

For me, it was being the mom of two. The second baby was a bigger shock than the first one (more about that in the About Me at a later date) and all I knew was that I’d never loved what the future held for me more than when I realized that we were having another baby. I had no idea the mama that I’d be, but I loved her. I loved her fiercely. But – and I’m being honest – I also thought this version of me would have her shit together a little more. I thought she’d be better at this. I thought she’d be too jaded to be inefficient. I thought she’d run those kids like a well-oiled machine. But here I am, (absolutely not) wasting hours of my day laying in bed with my babies because I’ll be damned if I let a second slip past me unaccounted for.

So. Here we have it. You’re looking in the mirror. You have no idea who that person is. The 80 lbs that you gained over 5 years and two babies would have horrified college-you (and probably would have been a factor in kicking the “I’d like a Bud Diesel” thing you thought was soooo cute circa 2010 a little bit sooner…but I digress). Regardless of what you see – hopefully, when you look in that mirror, you also love that person.Even though you don’t know them.

Now mix that with the fact that you have a tiny human that you also don’t know. And you’re in charge. It is on you to contain this literal person with a free-will. Surely God has a sense of humor if he gave our children free-will. Wouldn’t free-will after 30 have been a better idea? Just to help out parents everywhere? No? Well here we are then. Here we are, reconciling our past, current, and future selves with these babies that we’ve been given – and we carry all of this on our shoulders along with the luggage that our souls take along while they heal from traumas real or perceived.

So my point here is this: this first post is to remind everybody that I keep this perspective deep in my heart. I have no idea what kind of mama I’m going to be tomorrow or what trials of motherhood I’ll find myself within. I don’t know her. But I love her.

I hope the same for anybody reading this. I hope that all of you can take the sum of your mistakes and your graces and your wins and find the sum to be “okay” – because the “okayest” is what we’re aiming for here. We’re aiming for real. So while you might not be standing in shoes you thought you’d be wearing and while you might not be the version of you that you’d planned, I hope that you’re embracing this stranger. I hope you’re staring back at the person that you do now know and looking forward to who that person will become. And I hope that you love them.