Trying To Find Myself Again After Becoming A Mother ♥

Being a mother is something I've always wanted to be in life. I absolutely adore babies and couldn't wait to have my own, but oh my goodness, I don't think I will ever be prepared for how full on it can be.

Being a parent is a vocation, a way of life and something you have to completely submit yourself to. You do not get to pick and choose when you can be there for your kids, you simply have to be there and in my case that's been twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for almost five years (with the occasional mini-break for night away thrown in, but they're a rarity 'once in a blue moon' occurrence).

My children rely on me completely. They're both quite needy and want only me all of the time - even when their father returns from work. That means I get very little 'me time' and my days are filled with taking care of the boys and their needs from dawn to dusk.

Now don't get me wrong, I love being a mother. Those two little boys are my absolute everything and I'm doing my best to raise them in a loving, positive and most perfect way I can. In the last few months, however, I've also realised that I need to take care of myself and take time to improve myself - after all, you can't pour from an empty cup and that's exactly what I was, empty.

I am a broken shell compared to the person I was in my teens and early twenties. I had lost myself completely and my spirit was sad, defeated and a feeling of constant worthlessness followed me in everything I did.

I hated (and some days still do) every aspect about myself - my weight, my appearance, my new shy and awkward personality and that stupid social awkwardness which I just couldn't seem to shake off - how was it even possible to lose the ability to even speak to people and not feel like a complete and utter moron doing so?

So at the end of August I decided it was time for a change and I needed to improve myself and try to get back to an older version of my former self - or as close as I possibly could get to that person.

Of course, finding the time to dedicate to myself has been truly and utterly hard. I am the sole minder of the boys - their father works full time and we have no family to help. Tyler does go to pre-school five mornings a week though and I've taken this opportunity to get in a daily morning walk/jog with Beau in his buggy - I can't leave him so including him in my exercises was all I could do.

This past week I've also taken a huge step in joining the gym. I figured that there was no point in me losing all this weight and not toning up so I bit the bullet and joined the gym for the first time in ten years. I'm not going to lie, I felt so self-conscious up there and was probably the fattest woman up there, but that didn't stop me going back. As my mother said to me when I told her of my embarrassment - "You're just as good as anyone else" - something I would tell my own children, so why not myself?

Yes the children are crying as I walk out the door without them, begging to come with me and it's bloody hard turning my back on them and leaving, but it's only for an hour and it has to be done if I want to be around for them in years to come. Part of me feels so guilty leaving them behind, but why should I feel guilty for just taking a mere hour out of the day to try and do something for myself. Does being a mother mean that I don't deserve to do what I want too?

I have sacrificed so much since becoming a mother, but right now I need to pull a little bit back, just for myself and that's okay, right?

I don't want to be a horrible, fat, unhealthy mess who has no self-confidence or pride in herself because of her appearance. I want to be happy, healthy and feel good about myself again. I want to be a good example to my children - obese is something I will never let them be, having experienced it myself.

I've also been making time for me to enjoy myself, me needing a social life also and already have some days out in the pipeline - after living like an unsociable hermit for years I'm embracing this with open arms. Yes I'm still awkward meeting new people but I need to snap out of it and put myself out there.

As I said to another blogger earlier in the week - "You are enough, you are beautiful, you are perfect". I need to be as kind to myself as I am to others and in doing so I hope to find that piece of myself that I lost since becoming a mother.