Still Me

One of the most horrifying moments after I got married was realizing that I was still me. As I grew up and pictured myself as a wife, I had an expectation of who I would be. What I didn’t realize, however, was from the night before my wedding to the night after it, the only thing that changed was my last name. I woke up the day after my wedding, and the months after, as MYSELF. Oh God! I was supposed to be patient and mature, gentle and sophisticated. But here I am. Still. the. same. me. I thought when I became a wife, I would be more...wife-like? But I’m not, I’m just me.

Then I became a mom. I remember pushing the stroller at the park and feeling like an imposter. How am I a mom?! Mom’s are supposed to be organized, and patient, and mature, and smart. BUT I AM STILL ME. Nothing changed in me from the day I was 9 months pregnant to me holding my son. At the end of the day, nothing has changed except the new title of mom. I thought when I became a mom I would transform into, I don’t know...a mom.

BUT I’M STILL JUST ME.

It’s horrifying and beautiful. It’s challenging and freeing. It’s the tension of realizing that my expectations of what I would be as a mom or wife were unrealistic, and also the realization that I have the rest of my life to grow into the wife and mom that I want to be. My interactions with Joel, my boys, and the Holy Spirit - all used as tools to sharpen, push, and press me - will, if I allow, fashion me into the person I was made to be. As a wife and a mom. It may look different from what I pictured years ago, but will, I think, be a more accurate picture of what God had intended in the first place.