After realizing the extent to which I lost myself, I began seeking ways to build a life beyond parenting. But what does that even mean—a life beyond parenting?
From the moment I held my first baby, all 3 1/2 pounds of fragile innocence, I realized I would love, worry about, cheer on, and offer guidance to this person for the rest of my life. I am forever a parent, even long after my boys have stepped into the world, sought a life apart from mine, and started their own families.
So I’m not pretending that a life beyond parenting means a life outside of parenting, especially when I still have little ones who demand much of my attention. I will forever filter a portion of everything I do through the lens of being a parent. This piece of my identity is indelible and vital—but it’s still just a piece.
So what are the other pieces? After five years of not knowing anymore, I was finally ready to find out.
Realizing a hard truth
My husband wanted me to have a whole Saturday morning to myself. Wow. I had just hit the one-year anniversary of becoming a homeschool teacher thanks to COVID. I nestled into his embrace and held him tightly.
After giving me three kisses goodbye, my husband and kiddos headed to the playground. I closed the door behind them and exhaled deeply. Silence enveloped the house. I plopped myself on the sofa. I scowled at the toys strewn around the living room floor but refused to spend my alone time cleaning. Instead, I pondered what I would do with this precious time. But as the minutes passed, nothing came to mind.
I pondered what I would do with this precious time. But as the minutes passed, nothing came to mind.
My heart grew heavier. I started wiggling in my seat and feeling anxious. The silence turned awkward, oppressive, and intimidating. To suppress these rising uncomfortable feelings, I pulled out my phone and began scrolling. Three hours felt like 10 minutes. And when I finally put away my phone, I felt empty.
I wanted to lay down and cry. I couldn’t understand why I felt alone. Lost. Invisible. A husk of my former self. But I didn’t have time to investigate or wallow; my family had just come home.
Yet a hard truth had settled deep inside me, like a boulder that sunk to the bottom of a lake. And the more I tried to ignore that truth, the more that impatience and anger filled the space left behind, where my identity as an individual used to be.
The slow, unconscious loss of self
I don’t even know when I lost myself. The process was slow and unconscious.
After my first baby, I reduced my work life to part time. As much as I enjoyed interacting with adults about topics other than parenthood, editing government publications didn’t advance my passion: creative writing. And by the time we finished the bedtime routine, I was too tired to focus on my personal writing.
So I gave myself grace. Instead of berating myself, I choose to enjoy the now, to immerse myself in and relish the few, quick years of my baby’s early childhood. Someday, I said. Someday I’ll get back to writing.
I had no clue that my days would revolve around their needs, their wants, their desires and that I would quickly yet unknowingly forget my own.
Then I had my second sweet baby boy. And after our daycare decided to close business—a week before I needed to return to work—my husband and I decided that I’d try becoming an at-home parent. I had always fancied the idea, having more time to play with my kids, savoring the sweet moments that receded too quickly into the past.
I had no clue that my days would revolve around their needs, their wants, their desires and that I would quickly yet unknowingly forget my own. And I never suspected that path and the associated mental onslaught of ceaseless hypervigilance would exacerbate my accumulating anxiety.
Self-improvement, but only in the context of parenting
photo by Erin P.T. Canning
While I focused on raising my two young boys, I forgot to take care of my needs too. I became short tempered and easily overwhelmed. I yelled almost every day, sometimes several times a day. My voice, the kids’ ears, and all of our hearts hurt.
In 2019, I finally realized that repeating the same patterns yielded the same results. If I wanted different outcomes—better, healthier interactions with my kids—then we needed to change. I needed to change. So I directed all of my efforts on learning new parenting skills and strategies that would help us foster a healthier family dynamic—one in which we communicated better, listened to each other, and worked together as a team.
I hated myself for not being satisfied with the life my husband and I built together.
My husband and I invested in peaceful parenting resources. We learned to foster stronger connections with our kids, to heal the triggers that led to my sudden anger outbursts, to learn self-regulation techniques that I could model for my kids, and more. I also worked toward addressing my anxiety and breaking the patterns of emotional abuse I’d endured my whole life.
Did these parenting resources help? Yes, absolutely!
However, I still struggled with feeling empty, because I completely forgot to invest in myself too. I no longer had personal dreams and goals. Hobbies disappeared; making time once in a blue moon didn’t foster consistency or momentum. I didn’t prioritize my own self-care. Worse yet, I hated myself for not being satisfied with the life my husband and I built together.
Letting go of my regrets
To be clear, I have zero regrets staying home with my boys.
My remorse stems from not knowing then what I know now: I wish I had identified and addressed my anxiety sooner. I wish we had taken peaceful parenting classes earlier, so that I could have modeled calmer coping methods as my kid’s emotional needs became increasingly complex. And I will forever regret that I didn’t know how to be the mother my eldest child needed during his preschool years.
Also, I am angry at myself—angry that I didn’t prioritize myself too. Perhaps if I had, I would have published the short story I’ve been sitting on for a decade. Maybe I would have finished the last two-thirds of my novel. Certainly feeling happier on the inside would have helped me be happier on the outside. And I wouldn’t have lost myself.
Tethering myself to the guilt of yesterday doesn’t help me move forward today.
However, tethering myself to the guilt of yesterday doesn’t help me move forward today. And I need to keep going, keep striving, keep trying. I can’t accept that feeling empty is inevitable or, worse, tolerable. There’s too much life out there still waiting for me.
Thus, I needed to find new resources—ones that would help me turn inward and find the missing pieces of myself. I needed to rediscover myself and carve out a life beyond parenting.
Rediscovering myself and a life beyond parenting
I began my journey to self-rediscovery over the summer of 2021. I participated in Facebook challenges and writing workshops that pushed me to dive deep into exploring my past, present, and future as well as various pieces that comprise a person’s identity.
These self-exploration prompts felt like I was visiting an old friend. I reminisced about the good times and the not so good. I reconnected with parts of myself I had forgotten. And as a result, I feel more in touch with the person I am now and see who I want to become next.
I remembered that I not only used to have big dreams but that I also used to chase them. In my twenties, I drastically changed my life that was stuck in limbo, and I persisted in making many of my goals come true. But afterward, I became complacent, overwhelmed, and paralyzed by anxiety. I lost my passion, my confidence, and my voice. And when I felt completely empty, I worked hard once again to rediscover who I am in addition to being a parent.
I have found my voice and have begun retelling my story piece by piece on my terms, without fear.
Now, I’m a wife and mother who works daily at trying to find my inner calm and improve myself. I am a writer, a thinker, and a problem solver. And I’m a survivor of emotional abuse and trauma. Moreover, I have found my voice and have begun retelling my story piece by piece on my terms, without fear. I even wrote my first poem in more than 20 years.
As for the future, I want to become someone who has found inner peace, who fosters a positive environment, who lives up to my potential, and who creates a legacy that inspires other parents to rise up and find their voices.
Connecting with other parents who have felt lost
When we’re in pain, we naturally want to curl up and protect ourselves. But doing so can also trap the pain inside. Moreover, those walls we erect to shield ourselves or the facade we create to convince ourselves and others we’ve got everything under control—well, those walls also block us from fully experiencing all the positives as well.
Conversely, when we find a safe space in which we allow ourselves to open up, to be authentic and vulnerable, we can truly know ourselves and connect with others. And connecting with individuals who’ve experienced similar struggles helps both parties to feel seen and heard and understood. In fact, by opening up, by making myself vulnerable to all of you as I share my challenges and lessons learned, I’ve found peace, confidence, relief, compassion, camaraderie, and purpose.
When we’re in pain, we naturally want to curl up and protect ourselves. But doing so can also trap the pain inside.
I’ve seen how sharing my stories publicly has helped not only me but also others to feel less alone. That’s exactly why I now strive to help other parents to reconnect with themselves through writing, so we can all have a safe space where we can return to just being ourselves—nothing more, nothing less. Where we can shed the expectations of the various roles we play in others' lives. Where we can turn inward and listen to our own needs and desires. Where we can feel grounded again.
The supportive online community forming around Life Beyond Parenting reminds us all that this journey is a lot easier when we do it together. Because I remember all too well what the opposite feels like. What it still can feel like.
Want to empower yourself with writing?
From journaling to fiction to nonfiction, writing can help us all to pause during our busy days and listen to what our inner voice has been trying to tell us.
Sometimes that means sinking into a recent perfect moment with your kids or partner or best friend and letting those good memories fill you up again.
Sometimes that means journaling to offload or to discover what your body and soul need to be renourished.
Sometimes that means brainstorming who you want to be 20 years from now, visualizing that, and planning what steps you can take today to start yourself on that path.
Sometimes that involves remembering all your achievements and discovering that it's not about how many times you've fallen; it's about how many times you've gotten back up.
I've seen how rewriting my story on my terms has empowered me. I’ve tossed aside the old labels others gave me. I see more clearly my strengths, acknowledge that I survived, and appreciate how I've evolved and managed to keep moving forward. And you can too. I promise, you too can make time to write, even as busy parents. You just need to get started.
It's not about how many times you've fallen; it's about how many times you've gotten back up.
We gain so much power when we own our story, when we’ve retold it on our terms. Don’t believe me? Consider this: We all have thousands of digital photos on our phones. But look at the ones you actually printed and hung up on your walls. Those are the ones you hold most dear. Those are the memories you see every day, the moments that you choose to represent your life. Such tangible memories (and the lessons you learned) are the ones you can pass down to future generations. They are the truths you want people to know and remember you by. And when you’ve shared your story in your words, you always have a way back to you. No one can take that away from you.
No one can silence you again.
How is a life beyond parenting possible, and what does that even look like?
Great questions. Based on my experience and the courses and workshops I’ve taken to help me find myself again, I’ve discerned that finding a life beyond parenting includes several elements.
But to summarize, we must first give ourselves permission to include ourselves on our list of priorities. Such a life enables us to enjoy our passions and pursue new goals—beyond the realm of parenting life. It means nurturing our minds, bodies, and souls. A life beyond parenting also means finding our voices, believing in ourselves, speaking up, and advocating for ourselves.
In short, it means taking time to rediscover our whole self—who we were, who we are now, and who we are becoming next. And a great way to rediscover our whole self is through writing.
To my readers:
Have you ever lost yourself? If so, how did you find yourself again? If you're still searching for yourself again, what methods are you trying?
