My Not-So-Mid-Life Crisis-My Messy Beautiful

  

    

    I feel the need to introduce myself as this is my very first step out into the blogging world and, well, I feel introductions are polite and in order in cases like these.  My name is Kristin Normandin.  I am a 30 year old mom of two young boys ages 3 ½ years and 19 months old.  My husband, Joel, and I live in Central Massachusetts and I am a stay at home mom. 

I am a “baby blogger.”  I am writing this essay specifically for this project.  I don’t have an arsenal full of already-written essays that I can pull from to submit.  I don’t even have a real, full arsenal of ideas yet!  My blog “The Mommy In Me” is one I started in 2011 when my first son was an infant but that I never really took seriously or prioritized.  As you’ll read later, my transition into stay at home motherhood was not an easy one and my blog was just one of many things I wasn’t able to commit to while I struggled to find my feet.  When I picked the blog back up very recently, I sat staring at it for hours on end trying to figure out if I should keep it, start over, what my direction was.  I pondered the title I had given it a few years ago.  “The Mommy In Me.”  It sounded meek and mild and amateur.  I spent a week trying to change it.  Then I sat and tried to think of why I named it that to begin with.  I re-wrote my blog description and in doing so, found the new and powerful meaning I needed to try and re-vamp this project. 

When I became a mother I didn’t know that I really was one.  ‘What the hell does that mean Kristin?’  It means that I knew I was a mother in that I had given birth to this perfect little boy whom I loved and knew I was responsible for feeding, bathing, loving and raising.  What I did not know was that “Mommy” was not meant to be just my new job description. It was an identity I was meant to absorb and become.  It took me a few really hard and emotional years to understand and accept this and this is what I will tell you about in this essay:  The transformation in my head and heart from “Kristin who had given birth” to “Kristin the Mommy.”  In me I had all of these versions of myself and “Mommy” turned out to be the most powerful one.  My half-hearted title from 2011 suddenly had new meaning and so it stayed.    

I began blogging again in 2014 under the visual theme of “The Well Stacked Momma.” 

It is my representation of all of those versions of myself in my motherhood: The clean, organized, well put together version, the mostly there but missing a few pieces version and the all f’ing over the place version. I spent the first few years of motherhood in the latter state and I tortured myself into believing that somehow this made me a failure as a SAHM.  I didn’t jump in and love the water or adjust quickly enough so I thought had no business doing it.  Well, four years later I have a new appreciation for staying home and have learned to accept that all of those imperfect versions of myself exist and they are all part of my motherhood.  Getting to this place took a complete identity crisis and a series of duly noted epiphanies along the way.  I don’t think I’m about to tell a very unique story but it is a true one and most definitely the most “brutiful” experience I have had in my lifetime. 

Recently my Facebook account prompted me to clarify some things on my profile.  It asks "What is your position at Stay At Home Mom?"  It gives me the following options in this exact language and order:  A) Maid, B) Chief Executive Officer and C) Mall Cop. (insert totally not amused, mouth slightly open in total disgust emoticon here). Two years ago this would likely have prompted an immediate bought of wailing, chocolate binging and needing to talk constantly about this topic with my husband and friends in order to work out my anxiety and insecurity.  “I’m not just a maid!  CEO is so offensively facetious and MALL COP?!  What the f%$k does that even MEAN?!”  A week ago when this happened, I calmly skipped the question all together thinking "none of these describe my 'job' and it's not important anyway." Then I ranted on Facebook like all mature, well-adjusted mothers.  My transition from a career-focused, confident young woman and wife to SAHM was not an easy one.  The change ripped open a part of myself I didn’t know was hurting so badly and needed such a deep, deep healing. 

I became a mom in 2010.  I had a son, whom we named Declan, in October of that year and in the months leading up to his birth my husband and I had, over and over and over again, the discussion about whether I would stay home or continue to work in Social Services.  My career in Social Work was only 6 years young (I was 26 years old) at the time.  I had a great collection of experiences under my belt, though, having worked everywhere from Leadership Training programs while I was earning my Bachelor’s, to intensive family case management services and finally, youth career training and transitional services.  I felt like I was finally beginning the “adolescence” of my career where I now knew what I was doing, was thicker-skinned and could really start to further my education and find a specialty.  I had dreams of moving into more managerial positions.  Advocating for organizational changes which could better serve our youth clients. Earning my Masters’ Degree in Public Health.  I was just getting started!  And now, here I was, expecting the arrival of my first born child and contemplating leaving work to stay home full time and…do what?  I had no idea what motherhood was let alone what it would be like staying home all day to do it all of the time.  Yet, I felt this gentle internal nudging to consider it. I suppose, part of me knew from the start that it was where I would end up but I was certainly not overwhelmed with some calm, spiritual calling to abandon my career dreams to stay home and raise kids.  So there really was a process involved in arriving at that decision and much of that revolved around the logistics. 

My career, despite my passion for it, is very low paying and barely covered the cost of daycare.  And when we did out our numbers, we saw that with some real lifestyle changes we could afford to live on just my husband’s income. Additionally my work wasn’t always 9-5 type stuff.  The world of transitional teenagers often makes for late nights and weekends.  So it began to beg the questions, “How could I justify working for so little compensation?  Couldn’t I pause where I was in my career to be a mom and come back later?  Did we get pregnant for me to dive into motherhood or dive further into my career?”  I knew that I needed to stay home and I knew that part of me wanted to.  I felt privileged to even have that choice to make.  But I was most definitely saddened by the idea of saying goodbye to the workplace.  I felt like I was replacing a part of my life that I loved and knew I was good at with something that I didn't even know how to do (because I didn't) and it terrified me!  I was angry at the world of social work for not having magic money at its disposal so I could be paid better to even make me feel a teensy-weensy little bit like I had the logical option to keep working because it was financially worth it. Magic money nonexistent and God’s voice in my gut affirming that “nudge” to stay home, my husband and I decided together that this is what we should do and we took it on.  I don’t think either of us expected the “breakdown of Kristin” that would ensue but we took that on too and have survived both! 

My first reality check as a SAHM was that the “lonely factor” was very real.  I remember my mom saying that this was her greatest struggle.  But I dismissed it (like a good daughter).  “How can you be lonely as a SAHM?  I mean, you’re with your kids all day.  And don’t you just go to playdates and have lots of other mommy friends who you spend your days with and talk to?”  I need not describe the emoticon that belongs here.  Or maybe I do:  a giant middle finger to my naive former self.  I was immediately struck by my loneliness. I craved adult conversation.  Coffee breaks with co-workers, long meetings, even arguing with teenagers!  After a while conversations like, “Where’s the ducky?  Where’s the ducky?  YAAAAY!  You found the ducky!  Now, what does the ducky say?!” weigh on your ego.  I literally felt less intelligent.  I underestimated how exhausting spending day after day with an infant could be.  When Joel got home from work and I finally had another adult to finally talk to I couldn’t muster the energy!  I was also blown away by the jealousy that I experienced almost from the get-go as a result of my feeling constantly exhausted and under-stimulated.  Joel would come home rambling about work and the intense meetings and projects he was working on and I would seethe with jealousy.  “Wonderful!  You spend your day with other intelligent people talking about intelligent things and feeling more intelligent every day! I’m SO HAPPY for you!”  I wasn’t very good at talking about how I felt at this point.  I could scream about it fabulously and learned that I could use Target as a way to drown my insecurities with poorly spent time and money wandering aimlessly and buying crap I absolutely did not need!  (By the way, I had no idea this was a “thing” for mothers until I found Momastery. You can imagine my relief!) But it was about a year out before I learned to be articulate about that jealousy and why it shook me so badly.

Jealousy was a big issue for me that had itself on repeat for probably the first two years of motherhood.  I was jealous about some real and valid things like the fact that Joel still had his career and many adult relationships outside of our family and I did not.  I was, however, jealous over some pretty rash and hard to explain things.  For example, I was jealous that he got to sit in his car for one and a half hours to and from work and listen to music and talk on the phone and be alone (because we all know long commutes into Boston are fun and preferred by all).    I was jealous that he had three parts to his commute:  He got to drive, ride trains and walk.  “Think about all that different air you’re breathing!” I remember yelling at him once.  “Different air?” He asked clearly confused.  “Yes!  Different. Air.  You breathe car air, and train air and walking air and office air!  I get ‘Normandin household air!’  And it smells in here! I need new air!”  (I feel the need to diminish my craziness by noting that this conversation took place in January.  In New England.  Winter sucks for SAHMs, I feel safe in making this generalization).  “Cabin fever” fed my lonely struggles and this then fed my jealously over all of Joel’s independence, special air and relationships outside of our home.    

Jealousy also came into play in a big way when it came to money.  Money was the most logical reason we opted to have me leave work and stay home to raise kids.  We had always had shared bank accounts up until that point and had never struggled in our trust with each other’s spending and saving habits.  Even when we both worked and I made significantly less then him, I felt fine in knowing that I was contributing all that I could and that our contributions were always to be shared.  Suddenly not contributing at all to that bank account made me feel horribly self -conscious and insecure.  ‘How can I spend this money?’  I would think.  Clearly this sentiment only lasted until I barged desperately through a Target.  Then it was “our money” for sure! 

It was always especially hard when Joel would get any sort of raise, bonus or promotion.  This is how we judge our success in our job roles.  We know we are doing well when we are promoted or compensated monetarily. Even in the world of Social Work we would get thrown a $20 gas card here and there just to say “thanks and we like having you around!”  Now, when Joel comes home with a bonus or a raise or a promotion it sure isn’t a $20 gas card and while I knew those raises and bonuses were things he was working hard to earn and that he earned them to benefit “us,” I was struggling to consider HIS earned money and achievements at work as somehow “ours.”  I was jealous that he got to share in the accomplishments of our children as their father but I didn’t think of myself as worthy of sharing in his accomplishments in his career…well, because I wasn’t a software engineer!  He got to share my job title and my air and I was beginning to feel suffocated.  In general, I just couldn’t see or appreciate my own work at home and was lost without the third-party evaluation of my progress.  I couldn’t see how my work was unique in any way, I had no defined job role, and couldn’t gauge my success.  I lacked purpose in the role I felt demanded the MOST purpose of all!  And I was struggling.   

In 2012 my second son was born.  Liam, we named him.   His first year of life was a transformational and painful year for me.  I struggled with my changed body, my raging hormones and the leftover battle of still trying to find myself in motherhood.  As I began to get over my round of pretty intense baby blues, I happened upon another important realization.  That a big part of my struggles revolved around my suddenly feeling quite small.  As a social worker I had a center of 300 plus students and 100 or so staff that I interacted with in some way or another daily.  I had students that would leave the program and move on but that kept in touch.  I didn’t feel huge but my world did.  Now, staying home, my scope of influence on the world had been reduced to the people who lived in my home and this crushed my ego and my spirit.  I felt alone and dependent.  I was terrified that I had somehow fallen for the great American fallacy:  that you can be a SAHM and live a happy, full, dreamy life without ending up the subject of an episode of Dateline!  I had drank the Kool-Aid!  I was now a SAHM living in Suburban Massachusetts, married to a man with a lucrative, growing career that requires travel and before I knew it he would be having affairs, we would be divorced, my children would be secret delinquents and I’d be a depressed, washed up lady, mourning my crushed dreams and replaying my life out in my head like a bad Lifetime movie “Lost, Abandoned, Forgotten and Alone:  The Kristin Normandin Story.”  Ok, so clearly these were thoughts I had during raging moments of panic.  More often and more realistically, I worried that I would wake up in 25 years and resent everyone in my household for having sacrificed a thriving time in my career to stay home and serve the family.  That I wouldn’t feel it was worth it.  I worried that if I didn’t resent them, my husband would resent me for having an easy ride.  Staying home all day, bonding with our children and spending the money he worked hard to make.  I worried that if everything here fell apart, I would have nothing left to fall back on.  Nothing left that I was good at.  No one left to tell me that I was valuable to them. That the children I gave it all up for would suffer and be robbed of the happiness I knew they deserved. 

It was at a well-baby Doctor visit for Liam when I had my first breakdown to a non-biased third party and came across another significant realization:  that I wasn’t doing much to help myself learn to love staying at home.  We were at the Pediatrician’s office and I was trying really hard to pay attention and interact the way I had when Declan was a baby except Declan was now a two year old and the kind of kid that can climb smooth walls with his socks on.  So he’s running rampant through this Doctor’s office touching and licking everything with a haz-mat symbol on it and the Dr. must’ve seen my eyes start to well up because he stops and says “mom, you hangin’ in ok?”  And, of course, because I wasn’t, I completely lost it.  I started crying and telling him how I just don’t think I’m very good at staying home with my kids.  That maybe everyone would be happier if we did daycare and I went back to work.  And he says to me, “Kristin I’ve known so many moms in my years practicing medicine.  I’ve met plenty of working moms who say they wish they had stayed home.  I’ve never met a stay at home mom who wishes she had worked.  They are good kids!  You’re doing a fine job.”  He asked about my choice to stay home and what my plans were for it long term and I answered, for the first time, that I didn’t really know.  This stood out to me because until that day I had always promptly answered “oh, as soon as they’re in school, I’m going back to work.”  It was then that I began to pay attention to how I talked to others about what it was that I did.  I started realizing how I down-played it.  "Oh I just stay home." "Oh I'm only a SAHM."  "I don't do much."  I lacked vision for stay at home motherhood.  I still didn’t know I was good at it (because I really wasn’t yet) and I didn’t know what my goals were in this role.  So I could only talk about it in a way that was diminished and half-assed.  Frustrated by this I fought the idea that this was “what I did now.”  I could only feel comfortable with the thought that this thing I was doing was not forever.  That it would be over soon and I could get back to doing what I was really good at in life.  To write that out, for real, makes me choke on my own tears.  Right now, I’m sitting in my office chair (which is in my living room/play room), wreaking of chlorine because we just got back from swim lessons at the YMCA and my boys are bouncing around my living room laughing at an episode of “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” asking me when snack time is and when Daddy will be home….and I am lost for words over how sorry I am that I ever spent those 2 years of my life wishing for this magical thing called THEIR CHILDHOOD to go faster so I could get back to “me.”  It was most certainly the reality check I needed to see that despite my having become a mother I was still so inwardly focused and consumed that I was hindering my own ability to be the best mother I could be.  I had not embraced what motherhood really was and I was not doing a good job of trying to help myself embrace that.  It was not a part-time or temporary thing I was supposed to do on the side of my other life’s work.  It was THE thing I was meant to do in life and it really was forever!  Whether I worked outside of the home or in I was a mommy forever. Staying at home to be a mother was my choice and I wondered why I began to wonder why I felt so self-conscious about that.  I began analyzing everything from the food I ate to the movies I’d seen and how so many things had embedded themselves in my brain over the course of so many years that made me feel overly reliant on outward approval to know who and how I was.   

I did not think of my role as a mom as a job and I suppose I was just realizing how much my former job (s) defined me as a person.  If I was doing well at school and work I was doing well.  If I was falling apart personally but school and work were going well, I was, therefore, not actually falling apart. If I was struggling at work or school, then I was struggling.  Without the structure of a “real job” I was lost and did not know where I stood with everyone and everything around me.  Was I the same wife to Joel as I was when I worked?  How could I be if  I was literally turning into a different person?  I inherently had less friends to spend time with because all of my friends worked.  But did they still love me the same?  Even strangers made me feel out of place.  When I ran errands during the day I thought constantly about what people must be thinking of me because it was 11a.m. and I was clearly not working.  “Spoiled, stay at home mom?  No education and no job?  Too lazy to find work?” At no point did I think that anyone had anything good or nice to say about the choice I had made but I was realizing that neither did I. After all, it’s not like those complete strangers were actually accosting me at the grocery store in the middle of the day pointing and yelling “Lazy!" "Stupid!" "DOOMED!”  I was projecting those thoughts out onto them because that’s what I feared I had become!  I realized it was time for a major overhaul of my brain, how it took in information and how it talked to my heart. 

I am submitting this article just two days after my 30^th birthday.  Thirty is the first birthday I have felt excited about in a long time and I wonder if this milestone age has helped me take all of these epiphanies I have experienced over the last couple of years and put them together in a way that will (and actually has already) produced real change.  When 2014 rolled around, my husband and I started having the conversation about our personal health and fitness and how, if we didn’t start developing better habits in that area now at thirty, it would only get harder and harder to get and stay healthy.  We started getting tired of complaining about the time we didn’t have and just decided one day to simply use the time we did have differently.  We started waking up at the unholy hour of 4:30 a.m. to work out together, in our home, every single morning.  Though daunting at first, we knew it was the only way we could make fitness a priority and we have been at it since the start of the year.  I’m up, energized and showered and fed before my kids wake or the sun is up and I love it! This process and the prospect of thirty being a decade to start doing away with old and unhealthy habits has helped me see that my motherhood rut needed the same type of treatment.   I first needed to commit to seeing things differently.  Just as I had committed to stop complaining about not having enough time, I needed to commit to no more self-judgment. No more projecting made up opinions of others onto myself.  No more internalizing the sometimes not-so-made-up but negative attitudes and opinions that actually did exist.  No more confusion about what it is that I actually do. If stay at home motherhood didn’t come with a job description I needed to write my own:

Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) Also Referred to As “Home and Family Manager.”  Hours:  every hour, every day.  Vacation time:  variable.  Breaks:  Minimal but can be negotiated with helpful supportive partner.  Primary Responsibilities:  keep children alive, nourished and properly stimulated.  Clean up after their immediate messes.  Manage the family budget and oversee large financial decisions.  Abandon your need for frequent reminders that you are performing well and for clear guidelines as to what it is you should actually be doing.  Learn to perform well and figure out what you should actually be doing.  Secondary Duties:   Keep up with the laundry and the dishes.  Socialize your children.  Socialize yourself.  Be involved in children’s schooling, monitor their development and advocate for them when they are trying to learn.  Take immediate responsibility for errors and remedy them quickly.  Manage your sanity and emotional health. Tertiary Responsibilities: Shower, eat, clean your bathrooms.  Salary:  None.  Other Compensations:  complete and total freedom in how you structure your day and time.  Bonds with your children that are just, well, special.  A priceless spiritual awakening as you experience the true meaning of selflessness.   

Note to applicants: if you do not know if you are suitable for this job, you probably inherently are.        

So, it doesn’t translate well on a resume and Facebook doesn’t have an accurate description of what it is that a SAHM actually does.  But those things only matter when I let them.  I think part of me needed to let them matter for a while so I could mourn the loss of an identity that I had known exclusively for most of my life but was much stronger than it should have been.  A young, ambitious but overly sensitive and outwardly motivated self that needed to sit the hell down so this new, confident, wise, secure and peaceful “mommy in me” could emerge.  Motherhood changed me as I think it changes all moms.  But I think staying home full time is what produced the depth of the change I underwent:  The full and straight dive into the most set-in-stone role a woman can take on was shocking and caused some panic but it was transformational and euphoric in its release.  Staying home with my boys, having been witness to every single day of their lives, has made every hard and pitiful day of my past feel worth it. It brings me closer to God because I know all those hard and pitiful days were spent preparing me for this very role.  Someday, when I die, my boys are going to bury me.  And I want them to remember me as an honest, real and truly content woman who didn’t fear or regret or resent that I was their Mom.

Wow.  The “Mommy In Me.”  I guess when I think about it, the word “Mommy” when it is misunderstood (as I misunderstood it in my first years of motherhood) sounds meek, mild and amateur.  When you understand Mommy as the most important thing in your life you will ever, ever, ever do…well, that’s not as meek and mild and amateur anymore is it?  Hey messy, beautiful warriors.  It’s so nice to finally meet you all and thank you for reading my story. 

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

  
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