There’s a photo of me from about three years ago that I can barely look at.
Not because I looked bad. Because I looked absent. Like the lights were on but nobody was home. I was there — smiling, holding my kid, being a mom — but I wasn’t really there. The version of me that had opinions and dreams and a favorite color and a sense of humor? She had quietly moved out.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think it happens to a lot of us, and we don’t talk about it because it feels ungrateful. Like, I have healthy kids, a roof over my head, what do I have to complain about? But matrescence — the identity shift that happens when you become a mother — is real and it is seismic, and pretending it isn’t doesn’t make you a better mom. It just makes you a lonelier one.
“Losing yourself in motherhood isn’t a character flaw. It’s almost a feature — you pour everything into keeping a tiny human alive and it takes everything.”
I started small. I bought clothes I actually liked instead of clothes that were ‘practical for running around after kids.’ I made a playlist that was mine, not the kids’. I said yes to a dinner that had nothing to do with being a mom. I started building Mommish — a brand built entirely around the idea that mothers are whole, complex, interesting, more than a role.
And slowly, piece by piece, I started to come back.
Here’s what I want you to know: you don’t have to wait until your kids are grown to be a full person again. You can start right now. Today. Even if it’s just asking yourself: what did I like before I was someone’s mom?
Start there. She’s still in there. I promise.
— Christa, Founder of Mommish
