Realizing Me

Where is your blog? Hmmm... not sure. Thank you for noticing. Sometimes you feel like your ranting to yourself. Where did it go? I told myself that I was going to focus the summer on my girls. They are only young once and I want to live in the moment not write about it. Yet, I love to write. How could I rationalize that writing would in any way detract from my enjoyment first hand? I do have to admit with 2 children under four it is very hard to write, but I have so much to say... doesn't take very long. What was the reason? I opened up the blog and saw it glaring like bright red paint on a white wall. Where was I in the blog? I am a mother and I am searching for my identity, but where was I?

I guess I felt like a student in a creative writing class who loved free writing, but was constrained by the class objectives. I felt limited by the theme of motherhood, probably because I felt constrained by the role of motherhood. The negotiation of the role of mother is so overwhelming at times that it overshadows the other roles I have (daughter, sister, friend, wife, teacher) which are also inextricably part of who I am. To me, self is ever changing. Self is the culmination of your experiences, relationships, perceptions, values from which emerges your concept of mother. The one to which you strive to be and evaluate your successes and in turn, your failures. The concept changes as you change. It does not just emerge from you experiences as mother, rather it emerges from your experiences in each of your roles. Therefore, in order to discuss "Mother," you need to discuss the whole woman and the world in which she occurs.

Can't you just feel the difference? I am a mostly stay at home mom who has an alter ego. My alter ego is a college adjunct professor. I go from dealing with the low level concepts of a four year old to the higher cortical conversations of the college classroom in a matter of moments. It has a profound effect on my perception of the world around me. It is part of what makes me imperfectly me.