I lost myself....

I feel like this past year or so I have been stuck  on this wild ride of complete life change, things have turned  upside down and I feel as though I lost my identity along the way. It's  only very recently  that I have started to feel like I'm  'out of the jungle' of new motherhood and the dark places I have been to are fading memories. Of course sometimes they still come back to bite me in the ass with stinging clarity every now and then. My hormones still  haven't  settled down yet and at times I feel positively  evil, but the bad times are in the minority these days and I'm  not stuck in constant  mummy mode any more.

When I was pregnant  the thought of losing my sense of self was a scary one, and I was determined to go through pregnancy, birth and new motherhood still the same as before. Unfortunately  it does change you, but I think for the better, because  I have now realised that I am still my own person, just with a few improvements and a lot more life experience. I have learned  a lot about myself in this past year, and actually  become proud of myself and who I am.

I used to spend 24/7 with my daughter  in her early days and weeks, we were bonded, like so many say 'the motherbaby' because throughout  the fourth trimester a baby's  needs for her mother are so great and they are almost the same entity. But slowly Reegan has grown, the transition of her starting on solid foods once she could sit up, leading to her crawling and now almost walking has really helped in healing my broken state of mind. Don't  get me wrong  I love being a parent and being depended on by this incredible little person is a privilege, but it really drains you, emotionally and physically. Our breastfeeding journey is almost at it's end, and whilst I feel  ecstatic to have gotten this far after all the difficulties at the start, I feel it is the last step between the most challenging babyhood and new toddler independence (?!). I already am feeling different  because I have more freedom to dress as my truer self and not think that as a mum I shouldn't be wearing baggy jeans and boring cardigans. I dont feel bad leaving her to dye my hair, and I put on makeup more often than not now, which  is a big thing because when I felt like I  didn't  have the time to put it on or was too tired and it really made me feel shitty and a bit alien. Being back at work has also given  me encouragement to focus on persuits outside of my domestic comfort zone. I have goals now. I'll  share them with you in the hopes that it will  keep  me on track!

• Attempt making my own clothes like I have been promising myself for so long
• Book some driving lessons! This is a hard one though because I still feel apathetic towards the notion of it and still am not sure if I have room in my life for it right now. 
• Buy that German language course that has been sitting in my Amazon "save it for later" for more than a year.
• Carry on working on the dolls house. Something I have not seen to for some time now. 
• Start writing again. I have projects that I never finished from about 3 years ago, and finally I have decided to resurrect my plans for publishing. I'm  sory of doing market research at the moment. It really is my lifelong dream  to be published. I have been writing since I was about six.

Wish me luck?