Is it normal to constantly question your identity and wonder why you are the way that you are? Our house has been a lot quieter recently and the walls seem to echo with these questions. It may help I’m having a break from alcohol at the moment, so the thoughts are much more successful at breaking through.
I was saying today to Dave that stay at home mothers must either end up a little crazy or very well adjusted in the search for meaning. When I worked, even for two days a week, it was so easy to stop the questioning at ‘this is my job title, therefore I am’. Stripped of the label and easy way to classify my time I do find it more difficult to articulate self definition.
My youngest sister is someone that I really admire (and not just because she reads this blog :p). To me it seems that she lives life largely indifferent to what those around her think, obviously not completely because that would be impossible. If she disagrees with you, she tells you, but is also open to being challenged on her assumptions. I’m not like that at all. If I disagree with someone, even family or close friends sometimes, often I will smile a small tight smile and nod, hoping the conversation will quickly shift to other topics.
Why do I care so much about what other people think? I mostly find it refreshing when someone disagrees with me, so what is so scary about putting my contrary view out there? Either that or (if sufficiently provoked) I’ll lose all sense of filter and unleash the inner Emma on exactly what I think and leave little remains. Just talk to our (now ex) housemates who had the unfortunate experience of two house ‘meetings’ in which this beast was let loose.
Dave is also the opposite to me. If something needs to be said, he says it, even if the truth will initially smart a bit. I admire his courage even if I squirm a little in the moment that he unleashes his views.
One of the biggest challenges about being a mum is seeing your faults reflected back at you in your children. Often it can cause the most inner discord, viewing in plain sight the things you desperately don’t want others to know about yourself. I guess you can either turn to ‘dullers’ like alcohol or food, or bravely gulp down your fears and face it head on. For now at least, I’m trying to choose the latter.
