Sooo....it hit me the other night...I've lost my identity! I no longer know who I am! I know this is common amongst sahms, but how do you reconnect & find yourself again? I used to be confident & outgoing. Now I'm boring. I find it hard to connect with other mums. I literally have nothing to talk about to anyone. It's been 3 years since I've worked & im hanging out for when my youngest starts kindy so I can get a job. I've done the math & it's just not worth working just to pay for full time daycare *sigh* help lovely ladies! Help me find my mojo again....
3 Replies
You get 50 percent rebate and if you only have one child in care it would be worth it. Don't go full time, go part time, even 2 or 3 days a week, it is totally worth it for your peace of mind. I never made friends with other mums but make friends through work. 2 days a week you have to get dressed nice, put some make up on and show up, you have no idea how much better it will make you feel. If I don't work, my mental health goes down big time.
Pick a hobby. Join a local sports club...something you are interested in or know you enjoy. If you cant think of anything, just pick something at random and think of it as a learning experience. Life is meant to be lived....learn the piano, take swimming lessons; swimming yoga, etc. Or if money is an issue, volunteer your time to a local library reading stories to kids or walking dogs, etc. You will meet a mountain of people doing this, and then you will have loads to talk about. Hobbies are great for heaps of reasons; I do horse riding...and you would be surprised at how long we can chat about horses. lol.
I had to reconnect with the person I used to be. I'd stopped it all and was so miserable. Then I started going to the odd concert with a friend, I bought an old SLR camera and picked photography back up (have upgraded now to a very nice DSLR and joined photography pages), my partner built me an easel to pull my charcoals back out and draw again, my grandma gave me an old family pool table and I built a shed to put it in plus a bullshit nice cue, I bought an ipod and a pair of beats to enjoy my tunes and some peaceful time. Things that were me before I became a mum. I also work fulltime, to avoid hefty child care costs we went with him on day shift and me on night shift so care was limited to a few hours after school which we found many family and friends were able to help out with due to only being 2 hours in the afternoon after school. Even during holidays I didn't have to start until 3pm so it was a maximum of 3 hours a day.