When to let go and when to hold on

Just got home from our first trip to the beach...as parents. Threw all the luggage in the living room, put her to sleep and sunk into my bed. It was wonderful and exhausting. The summer I was pregnant we were at the pool almost every day and I remember someone saying "enjoy closing your eyes!". It's almost impossible to fathom the small things that will become luxuries. All I wanted to do was lay out, take a nap in the sun, do a crossword, read a book....all the things my previous self associated with going to the beach. I was fortunate to have a few of these moments due to the help of my in-laws, but the old me and the new me were at odds with each other most of the time.

It felt very similar to how I would shop for clothes post baby. The autopilot part of my brain would look at medium sized items to try on while the current part of my brain laughed as I tried to squeeze into them. "WAKE UP!!" "This isn't your size anymore!!!" It's like having to retrain yourself. Everything you knew is out the window. I hadn't felt that in a while until this trip. I felt stuck between a relaxing vacation for me as it always had been, and the constantly alert family trip it actually was. This trip was about her. All future family trips will be more about the kids than about us. This isn't a bad thing....just still so different than what I'm used to. It took me a couple days into the trip to stop trying to have it all and let go.....to just enjoy focusing on her and enjoy seeing it all through her eyes. The vastness of the ocean, the sound of the waves as they crash over your toes, getting covered in sand and not caring, the sunset, the fireworks, watching crabs peek out of their shells and slowly march away once they think no one is watching...

I wonder if this struggle will ever go away, if I will ever get used to it...or if the selfish, independent part of me will always put up a fight when it feels threatened. There's a healty boundary in there somewhere. Most of the time motherhood wins and we just have to quit fighting the inevitable and choose to see the beauty of it all...but I also think that there are times we put up a fight because we are so desperately trying to hold on to who we used to be...to not let the important parts of ourselves slip away....because those are the pieces that make us each unique in this world. As mothers, as wives, as sisters, as friends, as daughters and grand-daughters.  Anyone can be a mom....but no one can be you. I suppose the challenge is knowing when to let go and when to hold on.