Necklaces and Mom Friends

I have a necklace that I wear pretty much every day. Not being a necklace person, it says a lot that I wear this one so frequently. It was given to me by my sister, the kind of for no reason gift that she is so prefect at giving. A gold pendant engraved with the letter “L” hangs from a simple gold chain. It is simple, quiet and sweet. I added a tiny red ladybug charm from another necklace that I used to wear all the time. The L on the pendant stands for my son's first name. And the ladybug charm came from my “Colleen” necklace. One of my friends, a jewelry designer, created this necklace as part of her “C” collection. Each season she puts out a new collection of jewelry all named after girls, beginning with the same letter of the alphabet. The simple, very tiny ladybug charm on a simple gold chain was the Colleen necklace, named after me because I reminded Becca of a cute little ladybug. If the L pendant represents Monster, than that ladybug represents me.

I wear these two charms together on my new favorite necklace. But what people see first is the L pendant. It’s about 5 times the size of the ladybug, often covering it up when the ladybug falls behind the pendant. Then, if they are looking closely enough they’ll notice the ladybug. This necklace feels an awful lot like my identity right now. I have a five and a half month old. What people see first in me is motherhood. They see Monster, they see me as Monster’s mom. Then they notice the ladybug, the Colleen parts of me that existed long before Monster was even a thought in the back of my mind.

There is something about motherhood, like my “L” pendant, that is so totally eclipsing of everything else. And I can’t decide if I am going to embrace it or fight it. I love my son. I love him with more than emotion I can really adequately explain, more weight than I can truly feel, more energy than I thought I had. And we are connected in ways that are inexplicable to me. He seems to be able to sense me, moving ever so slightly on the video moniter when I walk in the door. When I’m nursing him his stomach grumbles, and I honestly can’t be sure if it’s his stomach or mine that is making the noise. “I” has become “we” in my vocabulary. “We’re doing well, thanks!” “We’re having a rough day.” And while there is beauty and wonder in this connectedness there is also a sense of loss. Am I losing myself? Am I losing the parts that make me Colleen in order to make room for all that makes me Liam’s mom?

I’ve made a few new friends since Monster came into my life. These are my mom friends. Mom friends are great. I’m pretty picky about my mom friends. For example, the transition into motherhood may have been sunshine and roses for you and you have nothing bad or hard or difficult to confess about those early weeks (months, years) of motherhood. If that’s the case, awesome for you, but we probably can’t be mom friends. I need people who are honest about the hard stuff, the negative stuff, the part that wasn’t sunshine and roses. So my mom friends are the ones who don’t make it seem effortless and easy. They’re willing to complain about the hard phases and don’t act like their little one was born from the perfection mold. Cause mine certainly wasn’t. Anyway, you become close to your mom friends rather quickly; similar life situations have a way of doing that. And most of these women would probably never be in my life if it weren’t for the fact that our kids are the same age. Kate is one of those people. She has lived 2 doors down from me for the almost three years we have lived in this house. And yet it wasn’t until Monster was born two weeks before her son that we even talked to one another. Now we text almost everyday, take our kids on walks together, and even leave the boys home with their dads while we go out for a drink. My husband was telling me that Kate used to be a sick field hockey player. Jordan, her husband, told Tommy, my husband, that when she was on the field she was always the best one out there. I didn’t know this about Kate. I don’t know much about her life pre- motherhood at all actually. I know about her son’s sleep schedule, his day-to-day activities, how Kate spends her time with him. But I don’t know much about who Kate was before she was somebody's mom. It makes me wonder what she doesn’t know about me, about who I was before I was Monster’s mom.

Right now the demands of being Monster’s mom far outweigh the time and space left to be me. It is this season of infancy that requires me to be Monster’s mom first. But what will be left of me, of Colleen, when my strongest identifier is not longer that of Monster’s mom? How do I embrace the fullness of motherhood and still fight its eclipsing nature? For me, these questions don’t stem from an issue of time and space to do the things I love. I have a job that I go to 20 hours a week and a husband who’s more than willing to allow me some “me time.” It’s more about the mental and emotional factors. How do I mentally and emotionally separate myself from my son? How do I mentally and emotionally let go of what his needs are, if only for a few hours, in order to take care of my own? Do I? Should I?

These are just some questions I’m wrestling with…