I don’t remember the last time I had an in-person, meaningful conversation with a real life friend.
It has been that long. Months maybe …
I chat with friends on social media and we have occasional texts back and forth, but on a daily basis, it’s just my children and I.
My husband comes home each night so I’m not completely alone, but husbands just don’t understand mom stuff like another mom can, amiright?
When I was a work-away-from-home mom, all I wanted was to be home with my kids
It was the golden ticket, the dream. And now that I’m here, I’m grateful. So very grateful for this priceless time with my children.
But, I’m also lonely.
I feel lost in stay-at-home motherhood. And I feel awful admitting that I’m lost in my dream come true.
It’s hard to be the only adult I encounter each day. It's gotten to the point where I’ve started talking to myself just to process through things. Just to retain my vocabulary and ensure that there are more topics out there than who last went potty and what the result was. I speak my to-do list out loud, I remind myself to make phone calls, I visit with a jar of spaghetti sauce in the pantry as I piece together dinner plans.
Am I the only one who passes by the hall mirror and wonders, “Is this everything?”
Does my life truly revolve around diaper changes and trips to the playground and finding creative ways to sneak veggies into my kids?
Recently I was invited to a vision board night. I hesitated to go, because, do I have a vision anymore? Do I have goals that don’t include my children?
Who am I? Where am I going?
Everyone says that it’s important to take care of yourself once you have kids. Keep date nights on the calendar and get your hair done every few months. But let’s be real, those things slip so easily.
When you’re tired and money is tight, do you really want to go out to dinner and see a movie? Is it really important to color your hair when it’s constantly in a messy bun? Can you even see gray roots in a messy bun?
Does any of this matter???
I’m pretty good at finding the silver lining of life. I genuinely enjoy being at home with my kids and given the choice to return to the office, I wouldn’t. But that doesn’t diminish the wandering my heart feels in this season. It doesn’t take away that this time of my life is hard in a good kind of way.
Do you feel lost too? Has being at home sucked you dry? Do you ever feel like you want to run away?
Dig deep with me. Remember with me that we are in this role of stay-at-home life for a reason. Believe that our kids greatly benefit from having their love bucket filled by us. No one can give them what we do. Even on our worst days, our most lost days, we can speak life into our little ones.
We are giving our family a great gift — time
It may come at the cost of a little wandering on our parts, but I trust that we’ll settle into a path that feels right. And if we don’t, there will surely be lessons we learn that will grow us as moms and as women who have sacrificed to invest in the most important people in our world.
