Who am I and who do I want to be?

Have you ever woken up one day and realized that you don’t know who you are anymore? 

I have had this experience at least 5 times in my life.

The first 3 times were when each of my children were born, self explanatory I know.  Becoming a mother was the greatest joy in my life but it was also one of the biggest adjustments.  You go from being a woman with no responsibilities to a mom with boys that depend on you.  I don't think that it is physically possible to become a mother without changing who you are.  Children make you realize that you can’t stay young forever and that you don’t really want to.

The fourth time was the morning after my 1^st husband told me that he didn’t want to be married to me anymore.  I have come to accept the fact that we are much better apart than we ever were together but all the same that was the first time I felt the feeling of who the heck am I now smack me in the face and knock me on my butt.  I pulled myself up and after a couple of years finally started feeling like myself, or at least a new revised version of myself.  I started talking to my friends again…you know the friends that I stopped talking to because they didn’t like the person I was married to or just because my life had gotten so busy that I neglected them.  I was taking care of myself and my 3 boys and getting out and not staying shut up in the house because I was embarrassed for getting divorced.  In short I found a part of myself again…or at least a part that made me feel like a whole person again.

The most recent time that I experienced that knock me on my rear feeling was less than a month ago when I came home to a note on the counter from my husband of 3 years saying that he was done with our marriage.  It’s amazing how after finding a note like that I can find myself questioning every decision that I have made in the last 3 years and wondering what I did to bring this on.  After dozens…and yes I mean dozens and dozens…of unanswered phone calls, text messages, and Face Book messages I have learned quickly that I am apparently easy to ignore.  You would be surprised at how revealing and freeing that can be while at the same time making a typically confident person feel like they should just go back to bed and hide under the covers.  Fortunately for me I have 3 boys that won’t let me do that because they need me. 

So I guess it’s time to put my big girl panties on and start looking for myself again.  I still don’t know who I am but I am hoping that this time when I think that I have it figured out the answer will stick because I can’t remember who the person I discovered 3 years ago was so I can’t even find the roadmap to get back there.  Guess I will reinvent myself again.  Who am I now and who do I want to be? 

Come join me on this journey to re-discover myself again.