A year ago I was generally happy but missing something.
A year ago I felt like most of my “buckets” were filled: my marriage bucket, my kid bucket, my friend bucket, and so on.
Side note: I’m really big on my “buckets.” Biiiig bucket guy here. I reference my buckets a lot. When I was 23 I remember crying to my mom, saying all of my buckets were filled except for my boyfriend bucket. Then some cocky fella named Barton Simmons tweeted me his phone number on Twitter along with a vague, generic “lemme know if you wanna hang or something” offer, just like every true love story begins. And voila—my boyfriend bucket was magically filled! Well, I suppose “voila” is kind of misleading… after weeks of game playing (him, not me), not hearing from him for long periods of time and several awkward interactions at sketchy bars, voila—my boyfriend bucket was filled! But this is all a story for another time. Let’s get back to the issue at hand, shall we?
Most of my buckets were filled a year ago, and I was so thankful for that. But there was a huge, glaring bucket that was bone dry: my “me bucket.”
And by my “me bucket” I do not mean getting manicures. (I actually hate manicures. Yes, I’m basically a barbarian, I realize that.) I do not mean getting massages. (I have PTSD from the last massage I got: a creepy, questionable massage from some random place Barton found on some black market psuedo-Groupon site and gifted me last Christmas. I somehow made it out of there alive. Someone please, for the love of God, direct him to a Massage Envy next holiday season.) I do not mean taking boujee girls’ trips or meditating or getting facials or anything else you might think of as “me bucket” material.
I mean I was bone dry when it came to feeling like myself mentally.
Meagan Little Photography
After I gave birth to Scout, I was still working at Womanista, the women’s lifestyle brand I wrote for then. I took a maternity leave but then jumped right back into writing and, though it was definitely a grind sometimes, it was generally manageable and I felt accomplished at the end of the day.
After I gave birth to Talley, there was no longer a Womanista website, meaning I wasn’t working. And, not to take away from anyone with one kid, but TWO kids rocked my freaking world, turned it on its head, knocked the wind out of me, slapped me silly, and all the other analogies that imply “IT GAVE ME HELL AND I SPENT A LOT OF TIME IN THE FETAL POSITION.”
When Talley was born, Scout hadn’t turned two yet. So there I was with two very small children, kind of drowning in postpartum anxiety and I didn’t even know it yet, and not even slightly aware of how “not myself” I would feel over the next year.
What I’m trying to say is, for the entire first year of Talley’s life I didn’t even attempt to fill my “me bucket” mentally, and I paid the consequences for it.
I felt stagnant, stale and stuck. I felt brain dead. I felt inferior to my husband, in the sense that he was chasing his dreams and doing big things and I wasn’t even budging. I felt extremely restless and listless and aimless. And, most of all, I felt frustrated: I knew deep down that even though I was a good mom to my girls, and that was a huge priority for me, that I was meant to do more. I was MADE to do more. I was SUPPOSED to be doing more. Why wasn’t I doing more?!
But the problem was, I had lost my motivation. My desire. My “go get ‘em” attitude I had had pre-kids. And I was petrified I would never get it back.
I remember my mom used to always tell me that if it was a desire of my heart, it would happen. Mainly, she was referring to me getting married (I SWEAR I wasn’t as desperate as I sound, ok?? Get off my back, everyone. Jeeze.) She would tell me that since it was a desire of my heart to find a man to love and to take care of, that it would happen for me. And it did. (Except be careful what you wish for everyone, because my desire to “love and take care of a man” has somehow turned into me making said man a time-intensive oatmeal dish with a variety of garnishes and a fancy, frothy almond milk latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon every single morning…just fair warning.)
In the same way I used to desire marriage, I was now desiring to do more than what I was doing. It was a very clear desire of my heart to create, to write, to share stories, to collaborate with other creatives, to make something- anything!- to brainstorm and produce content and start bigger conversations, specifically about motherhood and all that comes along with it, both good and bad.
So last fall, I created a new blog. It wasn’t much—it was pretty bare and nothing fancy and I had to Google how to do the most basic things on it—but I did it, and it made me accountable. But more importantly, it made me feel alive. It made me feel weirdly accomplished, even though I was only writing about things like Scout projectile vomiting all over me while 30,000 feet up in the air on a 5 hour flight.
Cut to today when, as I’m writing this, I’m posting photos from a fun shoot I was honored to be a part of featuring local female entrepreneurs who are doing big things in Nashville. And I’m brimming with happiness and purpose and fulfillment, and my “me bucket” is slowly filling up again.
This is not a post to brag about how I’m just hoppin’ back in the saddle like it ain’t no thang. Because trust me, it was a THANG, you guys.
Being a mom became my ultimate comfort zone, if you will. I got ENTIRELY too comfortable doing mom things only, and ENTIRELY too comfortable ignoring the OTHER desires of my heart. It took me an ENTIRE YEAR to get the courage to do something other than plan nap schedules, prepare meals for my kids (that they would just throw on the floor), change diapers, etc. An ENTIRE YEAR to be brutally honest with myself about how I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone and do more.
So no, that’s not the purpose here. This is a post to encourage someone out there—specifically a mom who doesn’t feel like herself yet and whose brain feels like complete mush and who probably hasn’t slept through the night in ages and ages—to listen to the tiny voice inside of her. To listen to that tiny voice gnawing at her to do something for herself and to follow her passion, even if that passion is as simple as getting back to trying out a new recipe each week for her family.
I mentioned in a previous post that motherhood can sometimes make you feel like a shell of your previous self, and honestly, that’s exactly how I felt. But it doesn’t have to be that way forever. I don’t know who needs to hear this right now, but it’s been weighing on me to share the importance of filling your “me bucket,” whatever that may look like for you. For me it was writing, but for you it could be baking, or painting, or singing, or crafting, or volunteering, or planning dinner parties, or decorating, or leading a Bible study, or taking beautiful photos of people, or LITERALLY ANYTHING that gives you life and makes you feel like a real human again!
I’ve learned that, as a woman, it’s okay to have a purpose other than being a mom.
It’s okay to have desires that don’t only involve keeping another human alive or planning a play date or signing up for swim lessons.
It’s all okay.
It doesn’t mean you’re not “all in” as a mom and it doesn’t mean you don’t love your kids.
It simply means you recognize your heart has other desires, and that you owe it to yourself to pursue them.
Trust me, the dirty diapers and school projects and dance lessons will all still be there—only you’ll be refreshed, recharged and ready to mom the HELL out of those kids. Oh, and to make your husband the perfect frothy almond milk latte, too (insert semi-loving eye roll).
Meagan Little Photography