Forget a midlife crisis, I think I’m going through a mom-life crisis.
Just last week I blogged about not getting my four hours of freedom because of a snow day. I complained it was a conspiracy because every Tuesday since the beginning of January something has come up to prevent me from enjoying my hot minute of “me time” each week. Yesterday was supposed to be my day, though, free and clear to do whatever I wanted. Yet somehow—an hour into my “day off” —I ended up crumpled on the floor of my foyer, tears pouring down my face, praying to God for I don’t even know what, answers maybe. And I’m not even sure I can explain why.
My day started off on a happy note. I (finally) booked Cinderella Castle and Be Our Guest for our late-summer trip to Disney (one of my most favorite places on Earth), made breakfast, packed up lunch bags, shipped the kids off to school, and came back home only to find myself staring at a blank Word document. Turns out, I had nothing to say. I finally had some time to write and I had nothing to say. LOL, it figures. So, I turned to my other sorta hobby: painting. I set up my easel and canvas, prepped my paints and brushes, and pulled up a Bob Ross tutorial on YouTube. I got as far as the background, which looked like total crap—because, let’s face it, I’m no artist—and quit. Yep, just like that, I gave up. And in a huff, I packed everything up, cleaned my mess, and proceeded to have a mini meltdown.
Why? Because I’m a train wreck, and I have been for months. I thought that having one morning of solitude each week would be a glorious chance to bask in the silence, clear my head, and reenergize myself. But I’m starting to realize it’s not that easy to disengage from mommy mode and become Sabrina again. Clearly that’s going to take some effort because while my body is telling me to chill out and relax, my mind just won’t cut me any slack. It never has, to be honest.
I’ve always been an anxious, paranoid person, and a constant worrier. You can’t live in NYC and not be those things. But since having kids, I’ve taken things to a whole new level. I don’t know how to relax. I don’t know how to calm my mind. I don’t know how to take care of me anymore—physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, even socially. I’m so used to caring for everyone else that I’m almost incapable of taking care of myself. And it’s starting to catch up with me.
My mommy mind is on constant overdrive, overthinking every task, questioning myself, my every move, my every decision. Reminding myself to cram anything and everything onto my to-do list, my other to-do list, and finally my to-do list for my to-do list. I’m so stuck in this groove of being a mom that when I finally had a moment to myself, I literally had no freaking idea what to do with my time. Except, I wanted to do everything with my time, and that, as we all know, is an unattainable task. This has never been more apparent to me than yesterday. And now I see that it’s becoming a bit of a pattern. Whenever I try to focus solely on myself—writing, painting, shopping, reading, showering, watching TV, napping, praying, you name it—I just can’t do it. I don’t know how to do it. I used to. I used to excel at solitude, as a matter of fact. But those days are long gone.
This sounds so crazy, I know. I used to be Sabrina and now I’m just mom. But does that mean Sabrina no longer exists? Since my meltdown, I’ve been forcing myself to think long and hard about how I got here. I used to be able to sit inside my head and figure things out. But now when I try to reflect, all I can hear is screaming—and my to-do list playing on repeat in my mind. I’ve mentioned in recent posts that I’m constantly questioning who I am outside of a mom. And yesterday I discovered the answer: I am no one. I don’t mean that in a malicious or self-deprecating way. Right now, I’m just a momma, and sometimes I’m a momma with a pen. Motherhood is my shtick right now. It’s the only time I feel “safe” and “useful,” if that makes any sense. I know, I know, how could something that I constantly bitch and moan about actually be my “shtick?!” I’ve written ad nauseum about how hard being a stay-at-home is and how awful I am in this role but hear me out.
The more and more I thought about this yesterday—rolled up in a ball on my floor—it dawned on me that, when I’m in mommy mode, I know exactly who I am, who I answer to, and what’s expected of me. Turns out, being a momma is my comfort zone. And I can honestly say I didn’t realize that until now. I thought it was the other way around. I thought I was Sabrina trying to find her footing as a mom. And yet, when I finally had the chance to plan something outside of my duties as a mom, to do something for myself, to spend a few hours on my own, to be Sabrina again, I was at a complete and total loss.
*Mind blown*
I think part of my problem was that there were so many things I wanted to do for myself yesterday, and I had built up all this anxiety over the fact that I had only four hours in which to do it all. Then when nothing happened—I couldn’t write, I couldn’t paint, I couldn’t sit and watch TV, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t self-reflect, I couldn’t just “be”—I lost it. I put so much pressure on myself to “save the world” (if you will) in the shortest amount of time possible that I backed myself into a lose-lose situation.
And I lost.
So, yeah, I’m clearly in some sort of mom-life crisis. I need to figure out how to create a balance between who I am as a mom and who I am as Sabrina. I know I won’t get any easy answers today, though. It’s taken me more than five years to get to this point, so I’m certainly not going to fix what’s broken in the space of a few hours, or even a few days. But step 1 is admitting there’s a problem. And where there’s a problem, there must also be a solution. I just need to take a deep breath, remind myself that I’m OK and that what I’m feeling is 100% normal, and cut myself some slack. And then search for that silver lining. (You know me, these days I’m desperate for any silver lining I can find.)
I spent most of yesterday and last night thinking about this, feeling embarrassed by my weakness, worrying that I won’t find my way back, and praying for a sign from above to show me the way. Before I knew it, it was time to put my children to bed and I found myself alone in my daughter’s room. Rather than sit and read with me, she decided to stay with her daddy and brother in his room. So, I pulled out a children’s book that I’ve been meaning to read since my daughter got it for Christmas. It’s called “What Do You Do With A Chance?” by Kobi Yamada and it’s about a young boy who’s repeatedly given a chance but is too scared to take them, until one day he finds his courage, takes a chance, and realizes that sometimes you have to be brave and take a risk in order to discover something extraordinary.
It’s moments like these that further strengthen my belief in God. That moment of silence in my daughter’s room had to be some sort of sign, because what are the odds that I would finally pick up that book—one I’ve been meaning to read for weeks now—on the one day I needed it most. Because yesterday’s moment of weakness is my chance. My chance to figure out where I need to go from here and who I’m going to be when I get there. It’s time for me to be brave, hold out my hand, and snatch up this chance before it’s too late.
So, while my mom-life crisis is far from over, at least my path forward from here is clear. And my faith that I will get there has never been stronger.