Finding myself

I’ve always like to read, since I was a kid, since I can remember, I was always reading, I even preferred it instead of going out to play...well, sometimes...

When I was single, I used to dedicate one day for myself, I’d go to a nice coffee shop, with my favorite book, comfy clothes, I ordered a nice coffee and baked goodies, and read and read until I was happy with my progress, most of the time it was already dark outside.

Three years ago I became a mom, and I stopped reading, I just didn't have time.

I remember one day, I was with a group of friends all of them "moms" and we were obviously talking about "babies" I don't remember the specific topic but I said something like "Oh I didn't know that" all of them stare at me with eyes wide open and one of them said with a judgy tone "Oh well my friend, you obviously should read more then..." I felt...soooo bad, so awful, I mean what kind of mom wouldn't know that? what kind of mom "didn't have time to read"? OMG my poor baby was stuck with me, and I'm a monster!!, back then I was a new mom, I was unexperienced and felt insecure about my motherhood, and this comment just made me feel I really wasn't the mom I wanted to be. Now that I think about it, I wish I had a friend who was living the same I was, and that would've said something like: "Hey, don't worry, it's okey, I'm actually surprised you had 30 minutes to be with us"

When I look back I don't even know how I did it, I moved 9 times in the short period of 2 years, I left my house, my office, my city, my country, I moved to a new country, town, office, apartment, then another apartment, then another, then a house, then a different state, house, and so on...

Can you imagine, moving 9 times!! pack everything 9 times, unpack it, get rid of stuff, leave your furniture behind, start over stretching your budget to get some new furniture, only to give it away again?. can you imagine all this with a new baby, a new husband, a demanding underpaid job with bad managers who did not understand I have a little one?, who did not understand a new life was literally depending on me to live? All happened to me, along with countless  international business trips, long hour journeys, in endless projects, working on weekends, at night, after work, on holidays! All this with a very tight budget, all this without any family around and obviously moving so often that I didn't even have any close friends. Can anyone imagine it?. Not to mention, living in a place where you just can't find good doctors, and you have a sick baby for weeks, for months, and during all those months, you don't sleep because she is vomiting all the time, or she is congested all the time and can't breathe, or her tummy hurts and her diaper leaks because the infection is not treated properly?, can you imagine that? My brain was numb most of the time, and of course I DID NOT have time to read. 

Don't take me wrong, maternity it's the most wonderful thing in the world, my baby is the best that could ever happen to me, I would never change her over anything, If I had the chance to choose again, I'll chose her over and over, no matter what the rest of the options were. But I literally, had no time to be "me"

Finally, after two years of madness, I quit that job, all the moving stop and I'm, we are, starting to settle down, the last move was the hardest, this time we were home, so I spend months unpacking, putting things in the right place, assembling furniture, decorating, organizing, no time for friends, no time to read.

Then, it happened, I met an amazing, really cool woman, Gayathri, we got along immediately and guess what?, we had something in common, yeap, reading! She was nice, so nice that invited me, once a month, to her friend house to her book club. Since then, I've tried not to miss a reunion, they are all so nice, I treasure this time like you have no idea, it's so relaxing to be able to share your opinions and to listen to different ways to see things, sometimes tho, I just couldn't finish the book, but, I was motivated again, I met other woman with the same interest than me, but my time was still limited, daily, I spend a ton of time stuck in traffic, and when I get home my baby was waiting for me with so much joy, so much happiness in her face every time she sees me walking in, that I want to dedicate her whatever is left of the day.

My point is, I felt I was failing again, but then, Aline,  a wonderful woman, creator of this club, said something like, "I don't know how you make time to read the book, I never can, that's why I always get the audio book", I smiled, then the hamster in my brain was like, wait...whaaaaaaattt!!?? how come I NEVER thought about it! how come it never occur to me that I could just buy the audio book!!!...After that, whenever the new book was picked, I'd look for the audio book, and all those hours in traffic became my reading time, of course, you can not compared being stuck in traffic listening the book, to being in a comfy couch with a delicious coffee and bakery, smelling the scent of the book every time you turn over the page, reading new words you never saw before and looking them up to learn the meaning, having the visualization of how much progress you did in that day, no, there is no comparison, BUT, it did help me to feed the old "me", the hunger to be and find myself behind all the craziness around.

Then, Kristina, another one of these beautiful ladies, gave us the tip of the public library application for the phone, I had no idea I could do that!!, Oh well, how could I've known when I come for a country where libraries are far away from what they are in the USA, (I hope one day, that changes), anyway, I went ahead and downloaded it, registered, and wow!...you can read and listen to books for FREE, you can watch movies or TV shows you can even borrow music, it was like heaven!, now, in the last month I've read 2 books and a half (I'm hoping to finish the third before the month ends). can you believe it? I'm tripling my quota! and the best is, I don't sacrifice family time, I don't sleep after midnight trying to catch up and then become a zombie mom/employee the next morning, I feel so happy because little by little, I'm starting to be me again but now with a beautiful baby girl, what a blessing, right?

The moral of this story, if you can call it that, is, if you are a mom, or a daughter or a someone, dedicating her life to sick relatives, kids, husbands, jobs, and you feel you're loosing yourself, be patience, you'll get back on your feet when you least expect it. You will just have to embrace your metamorphosis and to look for different ways to do THAT thing you loved to do before, for me, it's been books, trips, friends, photography, exercise, spa days, etc...But, I'll be back, I found the way to keep doing my first passion, and I'm pretty sure, (I hope sooner than latter) than the rest of them will eventually come back, maybe modified, my reading is now listening, but I hear the stories, I imagine them, I still live them, not in the same way but still in a good way, everything evolves, specially when you become a mom and you need, you MUST be willing to evolve with your new "me", that combination, of your old single "you" and the "mom you", is what will make you beyond exceptional.