Who am I?

Emma Mackley - 27 Apr 18

“Who am I?” recently bellowed the lovely chap centre stage in a recent performance of Les Miserables I attended. As I wiped away a tear (oh, how I love that musical), I asked myself the same question. Whilst I know I’m clearly not Jean-Val-Jeanne (this makes no sense if you’ve not seen Les Mis, and you really should…), it’s a question which I think a lot of mums (and dads) may ask themselves at one point or another.

The loss of identity is actually quite alarming once you’ve had children don’t you think? Only yesterday I had a flashback of recreating the Dirty Dancing lift whilst on a date during student night at a local sticky-carpeted nightclub (I wasn’t a student at the time either), failing miserably, landing on my face, and rocking up for work the next day on three hours sleep sporting a massive carpet burn across my forehead. Just this week, I have been reminded me of the night I tried to liberate the lobsters from their tank in the corner of the bar I had spend the evening in. I had a great (red wine fulled) plan to smuggle them out in my Tesco re-usable shopping bag, store them in my bath overnight, and drive them down to the coast the following day in some kind of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang family day out.

That was who I thought I was; a very silly drunk person with leanings towards animal rights (and 80s films). Going out three – four times per week whilst working fulltime was the norm. Sometimes it’s the loss of that person that makes me sad, the friends I had during those times who seem to have slipped into the background now that I spend most of my evenings watching box sets in mute silence with my husband.

There are many factors, and sometimes your identity makes a break for it too along with your mojo – which leave you totally bereft and clueless. In those first few years of young babies, sleep deprivation, and feeding cycles, it can feel as if you are a million miles away from the person you once were. Discovering yourself dressing in a manner that you would never have expected (maternity jeans for almost a year after birth anyone, twinned with a wide variety of ‘lumberjack’ style shirts….), talking about things that your past self would have rolled your eyes at (boobs, feeding, mastitis, sleeping), worrying about being able to work, or worrying about the fact that you’re not.

How do you overcome this? Does everyone feel like this? I wrote the first part of this blog a couple of years ago, and discovered it today. The kids are now 5 and 7, both at school and it’s funny to see what a difference that makes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not frequenting student nights or dancing barefoot in the Mexican sand as I once did (often), but there are days when I suddenly feel like me again.

In some ways, the old me is gone forever, but maybe that’s no bad thing. A blend of the old and new is what I am hoping for – only today I remembered those days when the clothes don’t fit, lugging buggies, car seats, bags, nappies and bottles around and always being constrained by naps and meal times. Those days are hard, and it’s no wonder you have no time for yourself in amongst the fog. So what I’m saying is, I think it gets better, it seems to get better, as they grow and mature, maybe we do too, but without forgetting the things that made us, us in the first place?

Emma Mackley

Emma lives in Surrey and is mum to 4 year old aspiring princess and 2 year old handbag-wearing boy. When she's not running around after them, or buried under a mountain of washing, Emma is a freelance PR manager.

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