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RegisterMissing: Me
09 June 2010 - 05:27 AM | Posted by Sandy Hackenmueller
Categories: Uncategorized
About 7 years ago, I got lost. Really lost.
A rescue mission found me under piles of laundry. It was a suspected kidnapping. Toys were strewn everywhere in apparent mayhem. Muddy footprints were detected.
After the piles of laundry had been shoved aside, I looked up to face my rescuer. I should have known you’d find me. There before me, was my camera. When I had gone missing, I had left behind my favorite hobby – photography.
However, a thorough investigation determined that there had been no kidnapping after all. The final conclusion? The infamous loss of “Me”.
You’d be hard pressed to find a mother who didn’t feel like she lost herself somewhere along the long, arduous trail of parenthood. I’ve heard more moms than I can count describe this, feeling only identified by the tasks they manage or the relationships they provide. I was one of them… although I swore that I would never let that happen to ME.
Near the end of my second pregnancy, I decided to try recent advice and sign up for a community education class. As an artistic person with a respectable camera, I signed up for a photography class. The transformation began.
Photography was an outlet for me that couldn’t be touched by anyone else. Once I learned how to manage a good camera, I could take that little bit of “me” anywhere. And the best part - the part of me that was “parenting” was not compromised.
Over the next five years, parenting hit me like a storm. My third child was born when my oldest was 3 ½. I was a stay-at-home Mom with an additional part-time job from home. I volunteered at church, attended ECFE classes, and watched friends’ children when needed. I felt buried, over stressed, and tired.
When I look back on those years, I realize that keeping a hold of a hobby that was mine, and mine alone, was essential to keeping a part of my identity. Even taking 15 minutes here and there to shoot was still a way of saying hi to “ME” in the chaos of everything else that didn’t feel “me.”
That is my message to moms out there who wonder, when did they get lost? Where did the “me” go? Think about that hobby or interest that you love. Something you can do by yourself, or with girlfriends. Not just an activity you like – that isn’t the same. What is it that brings the warmth of excitement to your chest? What is your “passion” – something that makes you feel alive more than any other interest?
Bring it back in to your life. Even if it is just a few minutes here and there, with weeks in between. I’ve felt overwhelmed in my early parenting years more than I haven’t. But just grabbing my camera, getting lost in its creativity – even for a few moments - was enough to keep me in touch with “the old me.”
Which is now, simply, a part of the new me.
A rescue mission found me under piles of laundry. It was a suspected kidnapping. Toys were strewn everywhere in apparent mayhem. Muddy footprints were detected.
After the piles of laundry had been shoved aside, I looked up to face my rescuer. I should have known you’d find me. There before me, was my camera. When I had gone missing, I had left behind my favorite hobby – photography.
However, a thorough investigation determined that there had been no kidnapping after all. The final conclusion? The infamous loss of “Me”.
You’d be hard pressed to find a mother who didn’t feel like she lost herself somewhere along the long, arduous trail of parenthood. I’ve heard more moms than I can count describe this, feeling only identified by the tasks they manage or the relationships they provide. I was one of them… although I swore that I would never let that happen to ME.
Near the end of my second pregnancy, I decided to try recent advice and sign up for a community education class. As an artistic person with a respectable camera, I signed up for a photography class. The transformation began.
Photography was an outlet for me that couldn’t be touched by anyone else. Once I learned how to manage a good camera, I could take that little bit of “me” anywhere. And the best part - the part of me that was “parenting” was not compromised.
Over the next five years, parenting hit me like a storm. My third child was born when my oldest was 3 ½. I was a stay-at-home Mom with an additional part-time job from home. I volunteered at church, attended ECFE classes, and watched friends’ children when needed. I felt buried, over stressed, and tired.
When I look back on those years, I realize that keeping a hold of a hobby that was mine, and mine alone, was essential to keeping a part of my identity. Even taking 15 minutes here and there to shoot was still a way of saying hi to “ME” in the chaos of everything else that didn’t feel “me.”
That is my message to moms out there who wonder, when did they get lost? Where did the “me” go? Think about that hobby or interest that you love. Something you can do by yourself, or with girlfriends. Not just an activity you like – that isn’t the same. What is it that brings the warmth of excitement to your chest? What is your “passion” – something that makes you feel alive more than any other interest?
Bring it back in to your life. Even if it is just a few minutes here and there, with weeks in between. I’ve felt overwhelmed in my early parenting years more than I haven’t. But just grabbing my camera, getting lost in its creativity – even for a few moments - was enough to keep me in touch with “the old me.”
Which is now, simply, a part of the new me.
