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By OK Tease Co.
Where Did I Go Between the Diapers and the Carpool This one's for the mom who looked up one random Tuesday and realized she couldn't remember the last t...
This one's for the mom who looked up one random Tuesday and realized she couldn't remember the last thing she wanted just for herself. Not for the kids, not for the house, not for anyone else. This is about finding your way back to you without waiting for the season to slow down, because it won't.
Let's start here, because it matters. You didn't disappear. You've spent years pouring yourself into tiny humans who needed you at 2 a.m. and again at 6 and again in the pickup line. That's not losing yourself. That's showing up so hard and so long that you forgot to check in on the woman doing all the showing up.
There's a difference, and it changes everything. If you'd truly lost yourself, you'd have nothing to come back to. But you do. She's still in there. She's just been standing quietly in the corner while you handled everything, waiting for you to remember she exists.
So the question isn't really "where did I go." The question is "how do I start turning back toward her." And that starts smaller than you think.
I mean this literally. One thing. Not a full morning routine, not a reinvention, not some five-step plan you'll abandon by Thursday. One small thing in your day that belongs to you and nobody else gets a vote on it.
For me, it was moving my body. Not to shrink, not to fix anything, just to feel like a person again instead of a service the household subscribed to. Some mornings that meant real weights. Some mornings it meant a walk around the block while the coffee got cold. The point was never the workout. The point was that for those minutes, I was doing something because chose it, and slowly that reminded me I still had a self that could choose.
You'd be shocked how much strength comes back through your body first. Not because your body is the goal, but because when you feel physically stronger, your brain starts believing you're capable again. Movement is one of the most honest ways I've found to feel like myself, and it costs nothing but the decision to start. If you want a general sense of what regular movement does for how you feel day to day, the CDC's overview of the benefits of physical activity lays it out plainly.
I'll say this too, because it's part of my own honest story: there was a stretch where I added peptides to what I was already doing, and I noticed I felt stronger and more like myself. That's my personal experience, not advice, not science, not something I'd ever tell you to run out and try. If you're curious about anything like that, that's a conversation for you and a professional who actually knows your body. I'm just a woman telling you what worked for me.
Here's something I had to learn the hard way. Somewhere in the diaper years, I started treating anything I wanted for myself as a luxury I had to earn. I'd get to me after the laundry, after the lunches, after everyone else was handled. Which meant never.
That's backwards. You are not the last item on the list. You're the person holding the whole list up. When you keep filing your own needs under "someday," you teach yourself, and honestly you teach your kids, that mom's wants don't count. That's not selfless. That's just slowly erasing yourself in front of the people who love you most.
So put yourself on the actual schedule. Not the leftover minutes. Real minutes, on purpose. It feels selfish for about a week. Then it feels like breathing.
I used to think staying myself and being a good mom were in competition. Like every hour I spent on me was an hour stolen from them. What I've come to believe is the opposite.
Your kids don't need a mother who vanished into their needs. They need to watch a woman decide she matters. They need to see you set a goal and chase it, mess it up, and try again. That's not a distraction from raising them. That is raising them. You're showing your daughters what a full woman looks like and showing your sons what a woman deserves. The version of you who takes up space is the better teacher, every single time.
God didn't hand you these roles and then ask you to disappear inside them. He built you as a whole person first. Being a mom is one of the biggest things you'll ever be, but it was never meant to be the only thing you are. Don't let the world, or the guilt, or the endless to-do list, dim the light He put in you.
Stop waiting to "find yourself" like she's a set of car keys you'll locate all at once. That's not how it works, and the waiting just keeps you stuck.
You find yourself in the doing. One walk. One decision you made without asking permission. One morning you did the thing that's just yours before the house woke up. You'll rebuild her the same way you built the mom you became, one ordinary day at a time, showing up before you feel ready.
Some mornings I put on a shirt that says something strong across the front, and honestly it helps. Not because a shirt changes anything, but because on the days I don't feel like her yet, it reminds me she's coming. That's all. A little nudge that says keep going.
You didn't lose yourself between the diapers and the carpool. You were carrying everyone. Now it's your turn to carry a little something for you, and I promise, she's closer than you think.