As a wife and mom, for the last nine years I have devoted my life to these titles. In the recent months my heart has been wrestling with “who am I?” Yes, I can ramble off a long list of hats that I wear. I can give you compelling reasons why I am who I am today, however over the last few months I have begun to question those titles.
While chatting with a friend today I was challenged with a question… What is it that I am looking for in the coming year? In my mind I started to list off things that I am looking forward to in the year as a wife; I am eager to see where my marriage goes in the coming year; I am anticipating a deeper relationship with my husband as we are in a healthy spot in our marriage. I started to tick of thoughts about our sons; I am going to try and capture each and every morning I have with our youngest as he will be starting kindergarten in the fall; I am eager to see the growth in our boys in their personalities; I can’t wait to spend the summer months with all three of my boys. As the lists began to pile up in my mind with the inquiry of a simple question I realized that all my answers were surrounded around my hats that I wear and not my heart. Don’t get me wrong my heart is about being a wife and a mom, but I am also a woman.
What does it mean to be a woman… to me! Being a woman is about being a wife, a mom, a friend and… and more hats, more responsibilities. Strip that all away and here I am a thirty something year old grown up girl. Is it just me, there are times as I am wiping down the counters of our home or folding laundry that I find myself stopping to realize that I am not a little girl just playing house, this is real life. I am a woman, I have a family, I have people that count on me to do certain things and be certain places. The sobering fact of it all is that I cannot be or do without recognizing who I am.
I am a Beloved child of God. I am a woman. I am Andrea. I am a person that strives for outside approval yet cower at praises. I am someone that wants everything in nice neat rows yet often gets bogged down by said rows. I am a person that hates talking on the phone but loves to sit curled up on the couch chatting hours on end with loved ones. I am a lover of simplicity, fluff although sometimes pretty can feel suffocating to me. I want to belong. I love knowing that when I leave my home the city that we live in feels small because I know people’s names and they know me. I love community. I tend to be a private person and vulnerability is a struggle for me. I am an unfinished work of art.
Like every other woman, I am simply just trying to figure this thing called life. I know that I will falter and stumble. I know that I will not always get everything right, in the recent years I have learned that it is okay. I am learning to give myself grace, I am allowing myself to slip and not think of myself as unworthy or less than.
For me, being the oldest I carry a lot of the traits of a first born. I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. Expectations were always set high and I always was striving to meet them. I have had to allow myself the acknowledgment that I may not meet expectations. Expectations are often lofty, they are set high so that we strive – not necessarily meet or exceed. My personal expectations have always been sky high, in recent years I have had to come to terms with where my heart and mind was aiming towards… man’s approval and praise although gratifying not truly important. My value is not set in the praises of those around me. My worth is not measured by the loads of laundry completed in a day, the pin worthy meals that are set on the table each night, or the amount of likes my posts my receive.
In a society that lives in surface tendencies I have felt a tugging on my heart. The ease to sit behind a computer screen and show only the best of my life has feels like I am cheating not only myself but those that feel the same as me. I can’t be the only person to feel that my identity has been swallowed by the seasons of life! In my feeble attempts to strip away societies expectations, the churches expectations, and my personal expectations I sit here vulnerable… just me! I have no answers just a realization that being real and open is what I need for myself and I truly feel like in doing so I may find my identity.
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