I started knitting this blanket a few days before Lucca and Vivienne arrived to our house with around 2 hours warning. If you are new, read more about that here.
I had just learned how to knit a few months prior and thought I would knit our someday baby a blanket. We had already waited what seemed like forever, so I figured I had plenty of time, however this project was quickly tucked into my closet, inside a bag, and immediately forgotten.
My world was literally turned upside down the moment I became a foster mom to Vivienne and Lucca. I'd love to say I soaked in every moment, but I definitely did not. The days, weeks, months, melded together in a blur. I honestly do not remember much of their first few months here, but I do know that in those few months, I fell head over heels in love with them.
Just like Lu and Viv entered my life with little warning, I also lost myself with little warning. I don't even think I realized it was happening. This new person just appeared, seemingly out of thin air.
Everything that was inherently me disappeared. Photography. My new love of knitting. Travel (blame the pandemic for that one too). Going to restaurants. Reading. Cooking and baking. My world was now revolving around these two, sweet, innocent babies, and I found myself searching the internet for how to make my own yogurt drops, and gentle parenting instead of checking out the menus of the new restaurants in town that we wanted to go to. Adult conversations were nearly non-existent and all I thought about was keeping the two little people under my roof happy, healthy and loved.
No one tells you this when you become a mom. It just happens. Little by little. Piece by piece. You begin transforming into this new person. Motherhood changes you. You suddenly care so much more about the people, products, and environment your children are in more than you ever thought possible.
You can look at it as losing yourself, or you can look at it as morphing into a new, improved you. Before children, it's hard to imagine that you won't have time for the things you once loved, and that somethings that were once so important to you, suddenly will have no place. I want you to know that this is ok. If it truly has a place in your life, it will still be there down the road when your children are older, or you will find time to keep it in your life. As your children grow, you grow, and this is something that I am finding as we go along. I'm no expert by any means, but as my children are exiting toddlerhood, I'm seeing that there are parts of me that I used to love, coming back, like knitting.
I found the blanket I started knitting before motherhood last week and when I saw it, I realized that over the last month or so, I have felt more like myself again, and I'm not sure when it happened, but I can honestly say that I feel more like me than I ever have before. Its as if this blanket was holding on, waiting for me to find me again.
When I found it, I began telling Viv and Lu about all the things that you can make when knitting, and they asked me to make them each a scarf, and the blanket I started is going back into the closet for now. But the new me is staying put, just as an evolved, slightly cooler version.
All this to say, it is ok to let go of the pieces of you that were no longer serving you. It is ok to grow into a new person. It is ok to embrace this season of life, instead of feeling lost. EMBRACE THE LOSS OF THE OLD YOU. You are growing into a magnificent person that your children need to see grow, blossom, thrive. The metamorphosis of motherhood is a beautiful experience, even if it doesn't feel that way in the thick of it. I promise when you see yourself on the other side, you'll be so proud of who you were, who you are, and who you have yet to become.
xo,
Mandi
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