Running in Snow

I went running up the canyon today in the snow with my friend Kelly. She is an amazing athlete that did the triple trail challenge last year. I had my really old Sorels on that have absolutely no traction left on them and she had her dog, Sierra with her. She left me in the dust  powder, I need to get some better boots with some traction before I try to do that again. Still, it was so beautiful up there, with clear blue skies, looking down on the mucky, inversion of the valley. Sometimes you just need to get out of the smog, clear your head, and see the world from a different perspective. While we were running she’d explained that before she got married, she had wanted to develop talents and get an education so that when she became a mother, she’d have an identity beyond “mom.” Being known as Miles' mom wasn’t the problem—not knowing herself anymore would be.

My mom made it clear in no uncertain terms that once you had kids, wanting to be anything but their mother was selfish, wrong. She was thirty years my senior, a mother of seven. I was an 18-year-old college freshman. What did I know about motherhood and womanhood?

Maybe I was off my rocker. Maybe losing yourself was something good mothers did. I struggled with the issue even after becoming a mom. I’d carved out a “me” area but worried it made me an inferior mother. Then I got Kim as a new visiting teaching assignment. She and her husband each had one night a week to themselves while the other tended to the kids. He spent his nights in the basement, working on his paintings. Kim said she had no idea what to do on her nights, so she watched whatever was on TV. Not a favorite show, because she didn’t have one.

My jaw dropped. She couldn’t come up with anything she wanted to do? I could have listed a dozen ideas off the top of my head. Chatting at our visits was painful. Kim rarely had an opinion or preference about anything if it didn’t involve diapers or sippy cups. Politics? Current events? Books? How about the school system? Don’t even bother—Kim was practically a robot.

My mom was dead wrong.

My three sons will someday grapple with these same questions. I want them to have a mother with opinions, preferences, hobbies, and passions. I want them to know I love "Love Potion #31"—and that it’s okay to like Mint Chocolate Chip instead. That I enjoy reading Tolstoy and Abbey and Lewis. That I laughed myself silly watching Date Night. That I love to write. That I will write, because I’m a better mom when I do.

I’m already “Max’s mom.” I beam when I hear that. But when the night stillness settles in and my children’s breathing evens with sleep, I’m still me. My identity doesn’t go to bed with them, to rise in the morning when I start mothering again.

One of the Young Women values is Individual Worth. It’s not “Mother’s Worth” or “Worth You Have Serving Someone Else.”

It’s Individual Worth. It’s who you are, sans spouse, sans children. You, alone—daughter of God.

Kim is an empty-nester now. I wonder if she’s found Kim. Or does she flounder, not knowing who she is without children in the house? I adore raising my kids. I don’t want an empty nest. But I don’t anticipate that inevitable day with dread, either.

‘Cause I’ll still be me. And I kinda like me.