More Fashion Woes

Lately, I look at other working mothers and wonder where they find the energy to put on some make up and iron a skirt. Yes, I have that little to spare in my time/energy resource stores. Maybe it’s the cold I’ve had since September, over-work, stress, or lack of sleep, but I can’t seem to get myself interested enough in myself. I need a make-over, but I want someone else to just give me a look, arrange everything in my closet and tell me why it works. I thought this period of my life was over, but it seems to have come back.

I know the answer is not a beauty product and that it can’t possibly come in a bottle. I do know that the only “break” from responsibilities I have taken in the past few months has been to do something completely children-oriented. I feel guilty doing something me-oriented because I am away from the kids for work so much. That, though, may stem from something a lot more complicated.

As difficult as it is to accept, I don’t have a baby any more. I have a little girl who is becoming more and more independent every day. She still loves me best, but she has an active social life at day care and loves to play with her friends…and they do truly play together even though the child development books say they aren’t supposed to be that interested in each other until the age of three. My son and I cuddle and talk about the day, we read books together and he is learning to read, but he chooses his own clothes and puts them on and misses kindergarten when he can’t go. I am not their be-all and end all. Big children don’t need their mothers the way little children do. I could force various issues surrounding their education and our family relationships that would result in them needing me more, but that would only interfere with their personality development while giving me a crutch for my own character injury I should be working on.

Sure, I could transfer more time and energy into my work, but the work I do so that I can spend more time with my children is not the challenging career I once built. It’s just a string of jobs I need to do to help pay the bills. Getting back on the career path doesn’t feel like a possibility.

The good, old-fashioned phrase for this phase is easy to recall. It’s an identity crisis. I don’t really know who I am or what I do anymore. There is no uniform, no costume. That should not mean that a hair elastic and a pair of discount store jeans should be my fall back all the time.

Isn’t there someway for me to grow as a person, a woman and as a mother without fading into the background in my own life. My life is my adventure, I want to be the star of it, not an extra.