Human again? Maybe.

Today, I realized that I felt like myself again consistently for long enough that it felt weird to NOT feel like myself briefly in the afternoon.

What?

Let me try that again. Somewhere around the time I discovered I was pregnant, I began to feel like, well, SOMEONE ELSE. Blame hormones, blame exhaustion, blame a whole mass of life changes -- but for nearly 4 years, I've felt like more than a bit of a stranger to myself. Dark moods. Angry patches. Frustration after frustration. Resentful that there was no time for me, once I'd done taking care of children and husband and job and family.

Its worst was probably shortly after we moved into our house, just about 2 years ago. I hadn't seen my own things for over a year, and I'd felt like a guest in my husband's home for that entire time -- and I was tired of living on eggshells. It was nice, once we got here, to think that I would feel like an equal participant -- and yet, it wasn't that easy.

And admittedly -- it's hard to make a marriage the way we did it. Never doubt that I love my husband, and married him because I chose him, and wanted to spend my life with him. It's just that so much happened at once, in part because of our ages -- and when I turned up pregnant, well, there was wedding planning and execution, not to mention packing and selling my house, then packing and selling his house after finding OUR house. It was, for all practical purposes, 2 solid years of packing SOMETHING, and the first things packed (my things from my house) were the last into this house (thanks to the convenience of Store-to-Door). And both sleep deprived while we tried to settle into THIS house, and make sure that neither child was slighted in the process... Exhausting, physically and emotionally.

And my brain wrote checks my aging body couldn't cash, frankly -- I simply underestimated how exhausting being the mother of a small child at my age would be. I'm always flattered by the shocked response when I tell someone that I'm 43, but as good as my eye cream is, HEY! I'M 43! With a 3-year-old! Someone get me a drink and a cushion for my feet! I've earned it!

I used to be proactively organized, prepared, and on top of things. The last few years have been an exercise in staying just ahead of emergencies, and in all honesty, resenting that my hubby doesn't seem to care about how many balls I have in the air, as he plunks down in front of the TV to watch some monster-creature devour half-witted city folk in a rural setting on the SCIFI channel. So I may have made a routine of cleaning the kitchen and bathroom every Saturday morning, but I ticked off on my list how long it had been since HE cleaned the kitchen or bathroom. And felt much less like myself, and much more like a scullery maid.

Today, all day, I felt like myself. This evening, I even had a moment of feeling as efficient and capable as I think I maybe used to be, and I really liked it. And I realized that perhaps I've come out of the long shadows of childbirth and early motherhood.

As I prepare my boy to go to preschool on Tuesday, and as I look in astonishment at his enormous feet, and try to figure out what size DOES come after 5T, and lament slightly that I won't ever need to lift his butt by his feet in order to slide a diaper under it again, I feel like an old friend has come over, sat down next to me, and asked if she can stay for awhile. And with delight, I realize that she is me.