there’s this version of you that just… existed. for herself.

she slept when she was tired. she left the house without logistics. she had bad days that were just about her, her feelings, her stuff. she was figuring herself out on her own timeline and yeah, maybe she didn’t have it all together, but the searching felt like hers.
and then you have a baby and that person just — goes somewhere. and nobody really warned you how total that would be.

it’s not just that your schedule changes or you’re more tired than you thought possible. it’s that you reach for yourself and find someone different. someone you don’t fully recognize yet. someone who cries at things she never used to cry at, who can’t remember what she used to think about, who doesn’t know what she likes anymore because there hasn’t been a quiet moment to find out.
that’s a weird thing to sit with. because from the outside everyone is saying congratulations and you’re thinking — yes, and also, where did i go?

and the guilt around that question is immense. because you love your child. obviously. ferociously. and somehow that makes it harder to admit that you also miss yourself. like the two things can’t be true at once. but they can be and they are. 
you’re allowed to grieve the version of you that existed before. she was real and she mattered.

what slowly becomes clear — not right away, it takes time — is that you’re not gone. you’re just different now. changed at a level that’s hard to articulate. like your priorities reshuffled themselves without asking you and now you operate from a different center.

and there’s actually something solid about that. something less anxious. the maiden was always searching but the mother just knows. not everything, but something.

you just have to get through the part where you don’t recognize yourself yet before you get to the part where you realize — oh this is still me, just more.

-Jules