I can pinpoint the exact moment when I realized my mother wasn’t only a mom – she was a regular woman as well. I was in my early teens. My mom was speaking at a church meeting and shared a story about a time when my family moved to a new city. She talked about how difficult it was to be in a strange place far from home and how even though she had a husband and three small children with her, she felt alone.
This notion had never occurred to me before — mothers can feel alone?
This was foreign to me, not because my mom had never shown emotion before — she certainly had — but in my eyes she was my mom: The woman who could do anything and never seemed to struggle. The idea that my mother had experiences and emotions just like other women left me reeling. What else did I not know?
This concept was reiterated to me years later at a family gathering where, in the context of the conversation, my great aunt made a comment that she didn’t think her children knew her real personality. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mom nodding and smiling in agreement.
Again, I was intrigued. What was she like then, if not the woman I knew as my mom?
In recent months my surprise at this revelation has dissipated. In fact, the further I make my way down this path of motherhood, the more I can see how this might actually be. I’m certainly not putting up some sort of façade for my daughter, nor am I trying to become something I wasn’t before. It’s just that the circumstances of my new responsibilities bring out a different side of me — one even I don’t always recognize. For better or for worse, it’s the mom side. It's another me.
Take my interactions at parties for example, or even my behavior at church. I have always considered myself to be a pretty social person. In truth, I love nothing more than flitting from one group to the next at large gatherings, making conversation, catching up with friends, meeting new people, laughing and talking a lot. I feel quite comfortable donning the hostess hat or bridging the gap between groups at someone else’s gathering.
Lately though, social functions (when they include Lydia) have become a far different experience. Now it’s a balancing act to try and make conversation, a sentence here and there interrupted by a tug on my leg or a scream for my attention. I’m genuinely interested in the other person but it probably appears otherwise when my eyes wander to be sure my daughter hasn’t toddled too far.
And no matter how hard I try, it’s difficult to connect with someone when you’re wrestling with an increasingly assertive toddler in your arms.
The end result is a version of me that, to someone who has not seen me in any other context, might appear a little less social. Someone more content to sit on the sidelines. Someone I’m usually not.
I have no intention of surrendering what I consider to be a positive aspect of my personality. Afterall, I love being a mom but I still want to feel like me. However, it stands to reason that one day Lydia might be surprised to learn that I have many sides to my personality, just as I was amazed to learn that about my mom.
In honor of Derek's birthday last weekend I took him to a concert of one of his all-time favorite bands: 
His actual birthday was spent working and then dinner with his parents and grandmother. He was spoiled -- exactly as it should be for such a wonderful husband!
