Who Am I?

 Identity is something I focused on a lot during my college years. I was an American Studies major, which was essentially culture studies for various regions and subgroups, and I focused a lot of my efforts on the teenage years and especially young women's experiences. Identity is also something I encounter a lot in my work, as human resources is now building whole programs around diversity, identity, and inclusion. But one thing I still haven't been able to figure out is how suddenly and completely my identity shifted once I become a mom. I am really struggling lately with figuring out who I am and what I want to do with my life and what my existence even means if I take away the defining characteristic of MOM. 

I spent some time with a friend I've known for 25 years (holy cow, that makes me feel really old because I had to literally calculate it out to make sure I was doing the math correctly!) the other day, and she became a mom very young and also just had a baby earlier this year, so she's literally been struggling with the same question. Who am I if I'm not someone's mom? What do I even like? What do I want in life? 

I'm fairly certain I am having a mini mid-life crisis. I turned 41 a couple of weeks ago, I have two teenagers and two elementary-aged kids, but no more babies. I started working in HR almost 20 years ago because I got handed a job at the company I was at, and it was a new, exciting thing I could build and grow on my own without a lot of restrictions and with the opportunity to really learn about the field. I've found a job working in HR again (with some writing tasks thrown in there too) and just feel myself hating every second of it. Is this me having a mid-life crisis? Is this me going through one of my depressive episodes? Am I just not meant to be happy ever? 

I looked back at pictures this weekend of when Micah and Jaxon were really young. I see happiness on my face then. I was happy with being a mom and having my career be secondary when they were little. But something about this stage of parenting (the boys especially are tough for me right now) is just killing whatever drive I have to succeed in this career path and to choose joy in the everyday mundane things. I find myself thinking about other career options, and second guessing my decision not to pursue teaching, but then I know in my heart of hearts that it wasn't teaching that I wanted, it was to get away from the field I'm currently in. 

So I am chugging along in my new HR role, and grateful for the paycheck, but just feeling so empty otherwise. I know there's other things I could focus my attention on that would be so healthy and good for me - working out, reading, joining a book club or volunteering, but I feel so exhausted all the time and like my cup runs empty all the time. There's no energy or spark left to pour into something else, so I'm just existing right now. 

Have any of you struggled with this in recent years? What helped you? 

2-Month Post-Op Update

 Today, I am two months post-op! It feels like it's been way longer, but then it also feels like I just had the surgery yesterday so it's a weird time. I do struggle with not being able to swallow food as well as I used to (maybe more of a mental thing because I was on liquid diet for awhile) and I definitely can't eat large servings of anything (liquids included!). Overall, if you asked me today if I'd do the surgery all over again, I'm still a little bit on the fence to be honest. I am glad I did it because I'm seeing results - 40 pounds down since my surgery weight and 45 pounds down from my highest weight! I've also lost another 7.5 inches since my one-month post-op update, bringing my inches lost to about 20" thus far!  I had to go a size down in most of my t-shirts and sports bras, and am comfortably wearing shorts and pants that were too tight a couple of months ago. 

But, the bad days have definitely been so less than awful, and I just had one the other night after trying to eat frozen yogurt. Probably not the best choice, but I figured regular yogurt goes ok, so why not give it a shot? Bad decision on my part, and I surely did pay for it! Fish still doesn't sit right with me, which is a bummer because salmon used to be a go-to dish for me. I still can't eat ground beef, pork, and am supposed to stay away from all grains and pastas. I've nibbled on a piece of chocolate here and there and haven't had any trouble with that, but I'm still very cautious about what I eat, and especially the volume. I feel like kids' meal portions are actually just right for me these days, and as long as I try to focus on lean protein and veggies, things go ok. 

I do wonder if I made the wrong choice in that there are some things I just can't ever have again. Popcorn being the most heartbreaking one for now because Micah absolutely loves popcorn and we have movie dates together and I can't share in his love of popcorn anymore. But, I also know that I'm much healthier today than I was two months ago, so I'm trying to stay positive and focus on the small wins with each step of this process. 

Photo taken 6-26-2023, weight is 233.4 pounds

Scars Remind Us That the Past is Real

"I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut

My weakness is that I care too much

And my scars remind me that the past is real

I tear my heart open just to feel..."

When I was younger, being an empath wasn't a thing. People were emotional or they weren't, and that was that. Now, being an empath is something that a lot of people identify with, and the more I learn about myself, the more I am convinced that I am an empath. The lyrics from Scars by Papa Roach above have resonated with me since the song came out in 2004. My weakness can be that I care too much about things and people and situations, so then I get too deep in trying to fix it and end up causing more damage. That has happened to me in friendships over the years, and I have to catch myself these days from trying to fix everything for my kids (especially my teenagers) because I'm not doing them any favors by always being on cleanup crew. They need to learn how to fix things, and even more importantly, how to sit in the ugly and not fixable for a minute because that's a critical life skill and a crucial part of growing up. 

There are so many song lyrics that tell a story about scars, a reminder of the past, pain, heartbreak. From "Scars to your Beautiful" by Alessia Cara to "Swing Life Away" by Rise Against to "Scars in Heaven" by Casting Crowns, these songs resonate with people because it hits a place inside that we've often tried to hide, or never spoken about to other people. Some of us haven't even acknowledged the pain and the scars to ourselves. 

Scars have been a part of my journey. I covered a scar from self-harm when my ex-husband and I first broke up right after high school for a month or so with a tattoo and a song lyric from Swing Life Away. 

In March of 2023, I went through a really tough time personally. I was struggling with big changes at my job, I was struggling with making the decision to get bariatric surgery, and I was struggling with my mental health and not being on the right dose of medication for depression and anxiety. I had a really tough few weeks where I was crying constantly, and unable to control my emotions. And one of those bad days resulted in scars on my thigh that have made me very self-conscious since. So for my birthday this year, I decided I was going to turn the scars into something beautiful. I wanted it to match the existing owl tattoo, so I settled on a dreamcatcher design, and found a local artist to make it her own. I am so happy with how it came out, and even more at peace with not seeing the constant reminder of my pain earlier this year etched on my skin. Something ugly and painful has turned into something beautiful. 

A lot of people ask me why I have certain tattoos, what their meanings are, and if I regret any of them. I don't regret any of them, except for the giant roses on my chest (which I'm slowly in the process of getting lasered). The only reason I regret those is because they are huge and hard to cover on work Zoom calls when I want to conceal them for my own self-confidence. Every other piece of artwork on my body I can trace back to a certain time in my life, whether or not the tattoo design itself has meaning behind it, the moment in time that I got that tattoo meant something to my journey. And that's what I tell people. My tattoos are a collage of moments in time in my life, and they matter to me because it's all part of my story. 

I'm grateful to live in a time when I am able to use art to tell my story on my own body. I'm grateful for a time when tattoo artists don't make self-harm a shameful thing. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's part of my story all the same. Each time I stumble and fall back into these old habits, I hope and pray that I don't have a repeat of it in the future, but you never know. All you can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and move forward. And that's exactly what this dreamcatcher means to me. Holding onto dreams, chasing the ones that I choose, and appreciating all of the moments that got me here. 

"I think scars are like battle wounds - beautiful, in a way. They show what you've been through and how strong you are for coming out of it."

Trip to Nashville (6 Weeks Post-Op)

 Last weekend, my mom, my daughter and I traveled to Nashville, TN for a quick weekend trip to visit friends. We had some flight craziness (on the way there, emergency stop in Phoenix + 2 hours to the trip, and on the way back, delayed by 5 hours) but had such a blast seeing old friends and stopping at a few Nashville tourist spots. Here's my cute mom and daughter posing in front of the Gulch mural. 

The trip itself was so fun, but eating after bariatric surgery can be a challenge when I'm home and have my familiar go-to items handy. Eating post-op while traveling proved to be pretty tricky! I was lucky to have a small fridge in our hotel, where I could stash cheese sticks, yogurt, and protein shakes as well as my trusty Gatorade Zero (strawberry kiwi is a fave flavor currently) and waters. Eating out was a bit tougher, but I was able to find grilled chicken at the restaurants we went to, and managed to even lose a pound while on vacation. That's a win for sure! 

Another NSV (non-scale victory) was that I was actually comfortable in an airplane sit. The last few times I traveled by plane, I was feeling like I was spilling over into my neighbors seat, and that didn't happen this trip which was awesome. 

I'm down 42 pounds from my highest weight as of today, and it is so cool to see the numbers on the scale that I haven't seen in YEARS. I am planning to start on a gym routine this week, and bringing my co-conspirator (my daughter) with me for accountability and also to do something good and healthy just the two of us. Here's a picture of me and Rylee in Nashville in front of another cool mural. Looking forward to many more adventures with my girl! 

Decisions, Decisions

When you think about what you wanted to be when you were younger, what's the first thing that comes to mind? For me, it was always a writer or a teacher. So whenever I felt like I was hitting a wall with my current career, I would go back to the dream of doing one of those two things. In 2011, I started attending classes to become a high school teacher. Again in 2021, I began attending classes to become a high school teacher. As many of you know who have followed this blog for a bit, I was preparing to enter a third credential program (this time for social studies) after passing the three subtests of the CSET. 

Guess what? Classes for that credential program started today. I dropped all of those classes on Saturday. 

You might be thinking, "Why would you go through all of that trouble just to quit?" Well, let me tell you a little about this decision and where I'm at right now. 

Sometimes, our dreams change. Sometimes, the dreams we had when we were 15 or 20 or 25 or 30 change and that's ok. I'm 40 years old, and I'm just now realizing that it's ok to let go of the dreams we had for ourselves, and the dreams that other people had for us. My dream when I was 18 was to become a college professor, live in a rainy big city and write in my "spare" time. I didn't plan to have kids, I didn't plan to stay in California, and I definitely didn't plan to work in human resources. But, here I am. And you know what? For the most part, I'm happy things turned out the way they did. I have four beautiful kids and a good husband and a good life. Maybe dreams are meant to stay that way....

And maybe, our dreams turn into something else after awhile. To be perfectly honest, the thought of studying and being in school for the next year really made me tired. I'm not in the same place I was 20 or even 10 years ago, and that's ok. So I've decided to put my best effort into really making a solid career out of HR. I started working towards recertification of my PHR (Professional in Human Resources) and am applying and interviewing for HR positions. I am going to fully dive into that world and do my best to make it the career that I want it to be, along with the flexibility I've been granted over the years to still be a crazy sports mom and cheer my kids on through all of their activities. 

Perspective change and although I'm a little sad to give up that pipe dream of teaching, I think there's still maybe a way to do it. I could teach HR courses for community colleges. I could volunteer with high school kids in some capacity. The dream doesn't have to die completely, it can just look a little bit different at this stage of my life.