Somewhere between the NICU visits and the endless potty training, I seemed to have forgotten myself. Not all at once, more like the way you lose a lipstick in the sea of your purses. One day it’s just gone and you’re not sure when it happened.

This is the part where I’m supposed to say I don’t miss her, I love being a mom because motherhood is the greatest gift and Ash is my whole world. I love him to death. But you know what? I also miss the woman who had opinions about things that weren’t diaper brands or how we’re raising kids with iPads plastered in front of their face for hours with no end.

 

She Was A Lot, Actually

Pre-Ash Yasmin had a whole thing going on. She was traveling multiple times a year, read books for fun, and did spontaneous date nights with her husband, Anthony.

A friend told me I have an ADHD brain and she wasn’t wrong. I roughly have forty things going on at once and somehow kept all of them in the air. I’m a product designer by day and a chronic over-thinker by personality. I had hobbies (LOTS OF THEM) and actually had all the time in the world to do all of them.

And if you’ve known me for the past decade, you’d know that Ash didn’t just arrive. We tried for six years, done the whole IVF walk (it wasn’t for us), the adoption process (we couldn’t match with a mom), and then the big move to Florida. He was our little surprise and of course he became the center of everything.

 

The Slow Disappearing Act

I thought that when I became a mom that I wasn’t going to lose myself. Date nights became less frequent and long vacations became “we’ll do that when he’s older because hauling his things and the bottle sterilizer was just too much”. While I didn’t gain weight during my pregnancy, I gained so much weight after I gave birth because I said “It’s ok, you’re stressed AF. Deal with it later.” My Amazon cart went from things I wanted to things he needed. My Instagram feed was once a mix of travel and design accounts to pure mom contents because I was scared that I was doing it all wrong and traumatize my own kid that I’ll become the reason he goes to therapy.

And let me talk to you about the Instagram and Tiktok moms. They made me feel like I was shit with their perfect life and they had all the guides to perfect motherhood. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed in my entire life that I had to start clicking on “Not Interested” to get my peace back. I don’t skip those funny and relatable videos though. But if it weren’t for my close friend, Abby, I doubt I would’ve survived the first year with my sanity intact.

I did make mom friends at our previous neighborhood in Tampa who had kids the same year Ash was born. Those relationships, as amazing as they were and had also got me through the first year of Ash’s life, eventually fizzled because it turns out “we both have babies” isn’t the same foundation as an actual friendship. I still remain in contact with some of them but it’s not the same as if you were friends with them first then the kids came second. It didn’t help that we moved to Orlando after Ash’s second birthday.

For three years, my entire identity was organized around one small human. I sometimes would look into the mirror and see how exhausted my face has become. This wasn’t the same woman prior to motherhood, no shit. I have been on therapy the entire time and had a psychiatrist after I gave birth just to make sure I didn’t go into post-partum depression. Thank god I didn’t get it — it was the one thing I was very scared about.

 

Finding Myself Again (Very Slowly and With Snacks)

I realized that I didn’t want to lose myself, that I didn’t want motherhood to become my sole identity and I had to do something about it. I’m not going to tell you I “found myself” through yoga or a solo trip to Bali. The self-discovery was actually less cinematic.

It actually stemmed from me reading again and when I moved to Orlando where I had found new friends through a book club and a Facebook group. These are ladies who were close to my age and didn’t have kids. Although I never felt the pressure from them that I couldn’t bring Ash around them (they actually love him!), but it was just sooooooo nice to hang out with ladies and not have to talk about mom things for once. And shout out to Anthony for taking care of our son while I do girly things!

With Ash now older and starting to gain his independence, we now have time again to actually more things as a family and individually. I decided I was going to stop making my world revolve around this little kid, but instead have him beside me. And you know what, it made my life so much easier. I wasn’t going to put myself on hold again. I’m human and I want to enjoy my life too. Who says you can’t enjoy things together right?

And now I’m writing this blog, reclaiming the part of me that processes my journey by writing. The ADHD brain is still very much here with the forty tabs open. Still over planning, still researching everything to an unreasonable degree before making a decision. Turns out motherhood didn’t change me, I was just on hold, buried under a pile of dirty diapers and playdate schedules for a while.

 

The Part Where I Wrap This Up (Gracefully)

Here’s where I’ve landed: I didn’t lose myself. I just went on a very long, very unglamorous, hiatus. Juggling between my full-time work and now a mom, it was easy to just let myself go. But I’ve since then given myself grace and have prioritized self-care. Something that even past Yasmin wouldn’t do for herself.

The version of me who exists now is genuinely different from who I was before Ash. But she’s not less. She just has more context. More appreciation for sleep. More appreciation for Anthony (who is an amazing dad btw!). More appreciation for the miracle that is a child who will one day, be potty trained.

If you’re somewhere in the middle of your own disappearing act right now exhausted, scrolling content that makes you feel behind, wondering if the old you is gone for good, hi! I see you. She’s not gone. She’s just waiting for you to have a spare twenty minutes and a hot cup of coffee.

It’s fine. This is life now. And somehow, it’s also kind of okay.