I don’t know if you’ve heard, but last Sunday Oprah made the most amazing speech at the Golden Globe awards. I watched that speech and cried, laughed, felt empowered and ready to conquer the world….then I had to go to sleep. That is the life of a stay at home mom. The thing is, I want to be more than I am. I remember being four years old and having a knowing that I was going to do something amazing with my life. What was it? Of course I wasn’t entirely sure. Although I can remember around five years old knowing that I wanted to be a singer and a dancer and an Actor. I mean I knew that with every fiber of my being. That knowing that I was going to be a performer continued well into my teen years. I mean I just knew it. But then it happened. That thing that a lot of adults do to children. They make them think that what they want is a silly dream that will never happen. That happened to me, and maybe in another blog I’ll go into those details. But, the point is that some of us are fragile beings as children and need a lot of encouragement from those around us.

To this day, I still know that my greatness will come. I am a mother and I have birthed two children at home without any drugs, and that is an incredibly empowering feeling. The feeling of life flowing through you is like none other, knowing you helped bring a life is something pretty amazing. And not to take away from that, but I want more out of my life. I do. From the close group of friends that I have, I would have never imagined that I’d be the first one to have children. If a psychic would have told me a decade ago that I’d be a stay at home mother I would have asked for my money back. I thought for sure that I would be somewhere on a stage performing. Or on a movie set in some far off land. But I am home in Miami and it is a beautiful thing. After all, I set this into motion because it was something I wanted. But now how do I get myself back into that space? The space of fulfilling that desire that is still there? That flame that although doesn’t burn as brightly as it once used to, I cannot ignore it. In my sleep, in my most mundane activities, I sense it in the background. Sometimes I will close my eyes to sleep and I will literally see a flame ever so slightly flickering in the deep darkness. But how much longer will it be before that flame stops flickering?

So, here were are in 2018 and another year has gone by since I had my second and last child. I was never one who struggled with my weight or with what I ate. I enjoyed working out and enjoyed dancing and taking care of myself. But it was never ever an issue or the main thought in my life. Ever.

Fast forward to today, I am 18 pounds over my usual weight and my body fat has sky rocketed to an obscene amount. I let myself go and it’s been a struggle to get back to it. It happened very gradually, after my first daughter I bounced right back into shape, literally within weeks I was back at my pre baby weight. But of course with a few percentages more of body fat. Then two years after that, I had my son. Added 5 more pounds and a few more numbers on the body fat. In the span of 7 years, I went from 112 lbs and 17 % body fat to today at 133 lbs and 28% body fat. I have worked out on and off through out the last few years, but never consistently and never with the same hunger that I had before I had children. I am tired, tired of not wanting to wear shorts, tired of hating the way that I look. I started working out again about two months ago doing a mix of at home workouts and going to the gym. But throw in the kids getting sick several times, me getting sick, the holidays, me getting sick again and now my daughter sick with another cold keeping her home from school. It’s been very few times that I’ve actually worked out. That’s the thing, when you’re a parent, life happens. It just does.

I was always able to drop any sugar out of my diet and poof, I’d drop a few pounds. Now I drop sugar and the scale looks at me like “yea ok so what, we’re not budging a half pound”!! But here I am. I am refusing to quit and my plan is to gain muscle and slowly lose some body fat. Hopefully get myself down into the teens of body fat again. And I plan on using this blog to hold myself accountable. Perhaps it’ll keep me honest….

It randomly occurred to me that I struggle everyday with maintaining my wholeness. By that I mean the me that existed before I had children and gave myself away.

Something that most women don’t discuss with each other, or anyone else for that matter, is how much motherhood strips you (or tries desperately) of who you are. Maybe not for women who become mothers earlier in life, but for those of us who become mothers in our 30’s and beyond. Keeping a hold of yourself and who you have created yourself to be, is a task that must be worked on day in and day out. I remember when I found out that I was pregnant with my first child, I did nothing but cry for the first month. I didn’t just cry because I was afraid, which I was. I was terrified. But I cried because I knew deep down that the person who I was, was soon to be no longer. I knew that it was going to be a struggle to give myself away, if only for a moment, while I harbored this new identity that needed to be brought out. The first few years of motherhood were a constant struggle for me. I constantly battled with who I was becoming and who I was leaving behind. And fighting it in myself only caused me depression and resentment. Resentment towards my sweet innocent child who had no idea what was happening in the world around her. But I couldn’t help it, I had to go through that rough period to come out on the other side. Now, seven and a half years and two children later, I am finally starting to come out of the veil of only being a mother, and relearning who I am. I am finally giving myself permission without guilt to explore passions that I put aside, and finally allowing myself to learn who I have become. I am no longer the person I used to be before I had my kids. That woman is gone and I mourned her passing with great pain. But I am now a new version of that. A more confident, unapologetic version of who I was. And that is certainly exciting to discover.