If you can find who you were before you became a mother, you have cracked the code to finding yourself.
Many female baby boomers were taught to look pretty, go to college and find a husband. Never mind the education, that wasn't important. Today's young women ponder if a Master's Degree is enough, while their mothers were in search of an MRS degree. Times sure have changed.
Somewhere, as the years went by, being a wife and mother just wasn't fulfilling enough for many women.
There was wanderlust growing inside of them along with this angst of being something more. It usually begins as the kids are well into their teens and their life's purpose becomes looking for colleges and planning on moving out. Many women who have careers also experience the same feelings as the stay-at-home moms. Their routines of twenty years have been changed. No longer are they needed to juggle a career and family. They don't need to have dinner on the stove. They aren't carpooling or rushing from one activity to the other. All of a sudden there is more time in their lives and they find themselves standing still while everyone else is growing.
At this time, the questioning starts. "Who am I and what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life?" Little do they know there is so much more ahead of them. Going back to a time before motherhood is where you must start. Try thinking about the things that gave you happiness. Remember music and activities you enjoyed and try to feel what it felt like when you experienced them. Go back to your dreams and see if they are still there and how you can make them into realities today. We all had passions when we were childless, we wanted to do so much with our lives. Now the opportunity is right in the palm of your hands. You are older, smarter and much more resourceful now than ever before.
There is no reason why you can't learn a new career. Take the dance, art and writing classes you wished you did years ago. Don't let it become a scary time instead let it be a liberating exciting time.
We were meant to reinvent ourselves that is why the thirst for knowledge never ceases. It's a blessing being a woman in today's world. There are less restrictions and expectations than our previous generations.
Don't get me wrong, being a mother was the best thing that happened to me but it's not the only thing either. I have found the "me" before motherhood and she was patiently waiting for to come back, take her hand and skip along into future that is ahead.