Identity Crisis- My Messy Beautiful

Identity Crisis- My messy beautiful!
 

I'm 35.  At this point in my life, I thought I would know who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.  Turns out, as I've been wondering what to do, who to be, Life happened.  And sometimes it happened in BIG BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. 

I feel like somewhere in the past, when asked the question "Who are you?"  I would have had a laundry list of ways in which to describe myself.  Ask me that question today, and I kind of sputter, and stutter and panic.  What else am I besides a mom?  Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom.  My kids are awesome and strange, annoying and lovely, entertaining and exhausting...the list could go on and on.  I love them.  I would give my very life to protect them. 

But where have I gone?  Where is Trish?  What does she like?  What are her skills?  Where are her hopes and dreams?

Maybe I am the only mom who has ever felt her identity has been lost.  Maybe we all do at times.  Maybe, just maybe it's a good sign that I am having a identity crisis.  It could be signaling a new era in my life. 

I think in order to go forward in this, we first have to go back to before I became a mother.

In 2005, the world was my oyster.  I was 26, getting ready to marry the most amazing man and had a career that completely satisfied me.  I felt loved, valuable, vital, necessary.   I had great friends, a loving family.  Yes, I had my fair share of drama and pain in my life, but life was good.  I was good.   Content. 

I ended up pregnant very soon after the wedding (well, there went the let's wait a year idea!) I ended up finishing out my enlistment in the Army and moved to be with my husband.  A week after I moved to Ohio where he worked in Navy Recruiting, we welcomed our first children, TWINS!  Early.  Too early.  15 weeks early to be exact.  I was petrified.  We were out of town.  Alone.  Scared.  Stressed. Hopeful. Sad.  And added to all those emotions, I felt guilty.  How could I have not felt this coming?  How could my body fail me?  How could it fail my babies?  And in those first two weeks of the NICU, my confidence in self disappeared. 

Ava and Sophia, my beautiful babies, in constant struggle for life because of my failure.  At least, that is how I felt.  When Sophia passed away at 2 weeks, I feel I took all those things that made me uniquely me and locked them away, deep inside.  As If I was not worthy enough of having good things.  I floundered.  I flopped.  I flummoxed.  I simply couldn't deal with it.  And I had Ava in the NICU and she needed me.  My grief took second seat.  I zipped it up and put it away. 

Ava came home from the NICU after 3 months and  I told myself I should be thankful, grateful for Ava and I was, boy was I ever.  But a part of me was sad.  I was supposed to come home with 2 babies and I felt a piece  of me was missing, a piece of my family was missing. Again, I didn't let myself feel the pain. 

We'll fast forward here, I went on to have twins again, with some scares along the way, a month NICU, and then a cross country move.  I stayed busy!  A 2 year old and twinfants.  Decided to have one more baby and FINALLY, figured out how to have just one (thank you Jesus!)  And our family was complete.  As complete as it ever will be on earth.  Now my youngest is  2.5 and the feelings I have stuffed inside for so long are literally spilling out through any and every crack and crevice it can find.  And I find myself wishing I didn't have to deal with it all.

I know that I have to take that pain out and face it head on.  But it hurts.  It hurts so badly, it feels like I am back in the NICU rocking my baby as she takes her last breath all over again.  I want to run away from the pain.  I don't want to face it again.  But I didn't really face it before, I stuffed it down and secretly blamed myself. 

In my head, I know, logically, I am not to blame.  I took care of myself, I was under medical supervision and none of us saw this coming.  In my heart, my mother's heart, I started my motherhood journey feeling like a failure. 

I've come to realize that I can let tragedy, circumstance, life as it happens, define me.  But it also comes down to who I want to identify myself as being.  I can live in a place of sadness, I could become known as "the lady who lost her daughter." Or I can make peace with that part of my life.  There is no reason that would ever be acceptable to me that would make losing Sophia any easier and she will always be a part of me, my identity, my life, my family.  I'll always be her mother.  But I am also Ava, Tessa, Elijah and Levi's mom.  I'm Jason's wife.  Toni's sister.  Beth's friend.  I'm learning that my identity includes good, bad and sad parts.  I'm the sum of many parts.  And each tragedy, joy, tear, and laugh has made me into who I am today.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I still don't have an answer when someone asks me what type of hobbies I'd enjoy.  But I do know that I am worth it.  I'm worth the good things.  We all are.  We are brave and scared.  We are sad and happy.  We are timid and bold.  We are beautiful and messy.  We are brutiful, just as life is brutiful.