Reclaiming Myself

Somehow, upon deciding to be a stay-at-home mom, I lost myself. I lost the uniqueness that makes me who I am. Everything about me and my life turned into one big boring vanilla haze of bland, and I lost everything that defined the person I used to be.

In my teens and twenties, my friends always called me "crazy". Not in the loony bin sense of the word, but as a nod to my eccentric and free-spirited tendencies. I always dressed in crazy clothes. I always did random things. I was up for anything, and often did things that flat out scared everyone else. I was daring...a risk taker...if there was something to conquer, I conquered it with a smug grin on my face.

I loved color. My wardrobe was colorful, my household furnishings were colorful, even my car was colorful (it was purple!). Now I have a very bland mom wardrobe. Jeans and t-shirts; that's about it.

I wore glitter on my eyelids and had a love affair with MAC makeup. Now I'm lucky if I put on makeup once a week, and it's whatever I was able to score for free at Rite Aid.

I used to dream of colorful walls, chairs shaped like giant high heels, lamps with ostrich feather fringe. Now my house is completely white (except my pretty pink princess closet), and I have no wild and crazy unique furnishings. The only source of bright color is my son's misplaced toys strewn around the living room.

What happened? How did I get to be so boring and...dare I say it? Old! I feel so old! I'm an almost-32-year-old woman trapped in the mindset of an elderly woman. I miss myself. I miss being so full of life and fun! I miss color! I miss flying by the seat of my pants and going where life takes me. Granted, I am an adult and I do have responsibilities now. So no more packing up and moving to California at the last minute. But I can still have color, I can still have FUN for crying out loud. I can wear crazy shoes, I can paint my nails a toxic shade of neon pink. I need to grow down!! No more growing up!!

Back in my wild and crazy single girl days I got my nose pierced. I wanted it done since I was about 9 years old. (Yes, all those 80s hair bands were my influence, I won't lie!). After spending too many years studying Criminal Justice and working in the field, I was THRILLED to walk away and not worry about losing my job if I *gasp* had a facial piercing. So I went out and got my nose pierced, by myself. It was a HUGE moment for me. I really felt like I was reclaiming a bit of myself that day...being true to who I was, instead of what an agency said I had to be.

Last September I had some nose piercing issues while on vacation. I had to take my piercing out and I had forgotten to pack an extra piece of jewelry. By the time I returned home my piercing had started to close up. I gave a LOT of thought to just letting it close up. I mean, really. I'm almost 32-years-old, I stay-at-home with a 2-year-old all day. Maybe I'm too old for this. But something in me cringed as I weighed my options. I didn't want to give my nose piercing up. I wasn't ready to throw in the towel on myself. That piercing means so much more to me than a hole in my nostril. It really represents me allowing myself to be me. So I spent a few hours delicately guiding a thin little piece of metal through my nostril until I had reclaimed my piercing. I was vindicated.

I feel like so much more of me has closed up, like my piercing did. I've let so much of who I am go neglected, that it's just grown over and become lost. It's time for me to gently guide myself back to who I used to be. It may be painful to lose my grip on this safe and comfortable bland existence I've become accustomed to, but I need to do it. I need to be me, whether I'm a big professional in a downtown office, or a silly mommy at home. I need to be true to who I am.

My first step was ordering my laptop in a very non-practical shade of pink.