Who am i?

 Who am I is a question I have asked myself over and over again for many years.  Why do I ask that?  Because my identity has always been linked to someone else.  If it wasn’t my children, it was my husband.  I went from being a teenager to being a wife and mom at 18 yrs old.  I never had time to figure out who I was or what I wanted in my life.  From the moment I peed on the stick and found out I was pregnant my life changed and I started to live for the tiny human being that was growing in my body.  Unlike my friends who were out enjoying life and figuring out who they were I wasn’t able to do that (or should I say didn’t choose to do that because I put that tiny human being first and all the tiny human beings that came after her).  

Now, 34 yrs after becoming a mother to nine children I am finding that I don’t really know who I am or how to function without those titles.  Yes, I still have a pre-teen and a teen at home, but they do not need me in a way an infant, toddler, or even pre-schooler needs me.  I also have a husband that travels for work, so my identity isn’t as linked to him as it used to be either.  

I can honestly say all of this started a couple of years ago.  I started to realize the kids didn’t need me as much.  I started to realize that I had more time for “me”, but the big question was…..what am I?  What do I want to do with the rest of my life?  How will I move into that next stage of life when my identity isn’t 100% linked to other people.  

To some people’s shock (and maybe even horror) I did a few things that “were not like me.”  I ended up going and getting a rather large tattoo on my arm.  This tattoo came due to my struggles with accepting the end of my fertility.  I know that sounds weird because I didn’t plan on having more babies, but I still had a uterus and working ovaries.  As much as I hated my monthly period I knew that it was linked to my fertility and my identity.  When I was forced to have a hysterectomy (it truly was needed and we exhausted all other options in an attempt to save it) I felt lost.  I felt different.  Maybe it was part mental, but maybe it was part physical due to the change in my hormones, but I struggled with it.  I decided to get a very large tattoo on my arm to represent the amazing thing my body had done.  I got a tattoo of flowers, and each flower was a birth month of a baby I brought into this world.  When people initially saw this large tattoo (especially people who knew me very well) they kind of freaked out.  They couldn’t believe I would do something like that because “it wasn’t like me.”  But……who am I?  

I also went and had my nose pierced.  Why you ask?  Because I have always thought it was appealing to have a small nose piercing.  It is always something I wanted to do, but didn’t think it fit who I was.  It didn’t fit the image I was portraying, but for the first time in my life I didn’t care.  I wanted to be the person I always wanted to be, and reality was me getting my nose pierced was not going to affect how my children saw me (two of my children already had their noses pierced).  

Then earlier this year I went and got another tattoo.  Again my life was changing in a major way, and I was struggling.  I was in the middle of giving up a business I had really wanted to have and to be successful, and I was moving back to being a mom and self employed in the job I was originally moving away from.  My husband was taking a traveling job, and I was really struggling with it.  My identity had been linked to this man for the past 36 yrs of my life.  I didn’t know how to live on my own.  I have NEVER lived on my own.  I have never had to do everything on my own, and I knew big changes were about to happen.  I kept telling myself as I struggled that I needed to be grateful for the sacrifices he was making so I could work when I wanted and not work when I didn’t want to work.  I knew that I needed to be grateful that I could truly and honestly do whatever it is I wanted to do without worrying about money or the need to work (I now work only because I truly want to…..that is a whole other topic in itself because that changed my identity too).  So, I kept telling myself I needed to be grateful, and one day on facebook I saw a tattoo that said grateful.  I loved it.  I took the design to a tattoo artist and asked him if he could do it for me.  He said he definitely could.  Only problem was my hands are so small and the design was larger.  He worked with me to bring the design down to a more manageable size for my hand.  We had to change a few things on it to make it work and make it not look blurry or cramped.  Again when I came home people in my family looked at me…..trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking…..all the while I was trying to figure out “who am I?”

Then last month I decided to go way outside my comfort zone, and I joined a wine club.  I know for many that might seem weird, but when I became pregnant with my oldest daughter I vowed I would not drink and would not party and would not be a bad influence on her.  I took that to the extreme, and literally would have one drink a year and that was often when hubby and I were alone on our annual couples only vacation.  I saw something about a wine tasting event, and it got me thinking…..what is the harm in having a glass of wine once in awhile?  Of course, I will not sit and drink a whole bottle, but a glass here and there is okay.  The problem……I don’t know what wines are good, so in came the wine club.  With the wine club they choose wines based upon a basic questionnaire and then as you rate the wines they choose wines based off of that.  Some of my kids were shocked, but it was/is all a part of me trying to figure out who I am.  

I am still not 100% sure who I am.  I am still trying to figure it all out as life changes for me.  Life is different now, and I actually do have time for myself.  I can work when I want and not work when I want.  I can take off and spend time with the kids if I want, and I can travel if I want.  I don’t think I really, truly know who I am yet, but I finding myself.