How Motherhood Has Completely Rearranged Me

how motherhood re-birthed me anew ✨

There’s something I have been reflecting on a lot lately that it’s time to put words to. The way that motherhood has both created a new version of me, while slowly but surely evaporating an old version that I will never be again. If someone hasn’t seen me in three years since I first had Atticus, there’s a chance they might not even recognize me—it’s not aesthetic, it’s energetic. But it’s there.

In fact, when I saw my functional medicine doctor a few months ago for the first time in a couple years, she stared at me blankly like she had no idea who I was. The moment it clicked her for she said, “Oh my god, it’s you! You look… like SUCH A MOM!!!”

I wasn’t sure how to take that, lol, because in some ways that might mean I looked extremely tired or that I’d aged quickly in a short period of time—but I know it wasn’t that. She’s a spiritual woman, and she sees energy. I have grown and matured. I decided to take it as a compliment, and I know she meant it as one. I am not the young girl I was when I first stumbled into her office pre-motherhood. No, instead I’ve been initiated into a club that I’ve dreamed of my whole life—but never quite understood how much it would change me.

In the best ways, the biggest ways, in ALL of the ways.

Sometimes when I see an old friend or even just come across an old photo of me and reflect back on that time in my life, there is a resounding feeling bouncing through my body that says, “Wow, how far we have come.” But the old me is always in me, and I love her so much because she laid the foundation for my life today. Without her, I couldn’t exist. And perhaps she knew all along that I was on the way… evolving her from maiden to mother, from people pleaser to boundary haver, from a life of total freedom to a life that revolves around my family, from a life of sickness to a life where I don’t even really have time & space to notice if I am sick or not.

I love the old me, and I hav so much reverence for her—she went through a lot of hard shit. But my god, there isn’t a single ounce of me that would want to go backward. I didn’t watch her disappear all at once; it was slow, like the tide pulling sand from beneath my feet, reshaping the shoreline before I even realized the earth had moved. Motherhood didn’t just change me; it rearranged me. It took a hold of who I was and said, What do I even care about, and what is essential? What can be let go? Who am I now, really?

It has required a level of honesty and self-awareness to be awoken deep inside of me. An awareness that yes, things have to shift. That yes, I’d been living one way for so long and that wasn’t going to cut it anymore as a mother.

I used to be someone who said yes far too much. Who made space for friendships that drained me because I thought that love meant never, ever letting go. Who placed my own needs last because boundaries were terrifying. Who overcommitted and overbooked like my life depended on it, who overlooked strange behavior from people like it was my job, who ignored so many red flags in the name of being palatable, who said yes when all I wanted was to actually say no.

And who I am now? GUYS… its night and day. If you could come up with the exact opposite of my old way of being (even though those old habits still die hard on some days), it would be my current self. My current self knows the value of my time like I know the weight of my children’s rapidly growing bodies in my arms, their sleepy sighs against my chest, their first words and milestones and magical little evolutions from babyhood to childhood.

Precious. Fleeting. Essential. Non-negotiable.

Time has never felt so fragile, so impossible to hold. The days quite literally slip through my fingers. I blink and Atticus is on to the next shoe size, Delilah has outgrown the 3-6 month sized clothes that once swallowed her whole. And if time is moving this fast, then I cannot waste a single moment on anything that does not make me feel so alive and happy inside & out.

I used to worry so much that if I said no, the invitations would stop coming. I lived in an exhausting loop of over-explaining myself to people who were never meant to understand me. And even though I say all of this as if I feel like they should understand me, I know better than to know that is true. Relationships are dynamics. They’re two-way streets. And when one person’s life shifts so drastically into something as big as motherhood, it’s only natural that people may not recognize you and see you the same way as they once did.

I say no now. Easily. Without guilt. Without justification. Because every no to what drains me is a yes to what truly matters—my family, my peace, my kids, my husband, my alivenessss. Our HOME!

Also, I want to clarify, I have many friends who have not yet entered motherhood and many friends who simply don’t want to become mothers. I don’t think that it’s a requirement to be at the same stage in life in order to be close. But what does seem like a requirement to me is a joy and a deep respect for where the other person is at—I seek friends who are both interested in my life as a mother and interested/invested in my kid’s lives. I used to be able to look past that, but those days have long gone. To know me these days is to know me as a mother, is to know Atticus’s amazing personality and little boy joyousness, to know the delight of Delilah’s smile. It’s a part of me—a part of my literal soul.

All in all, I see motherhood as the great clarifier. The great reckoning. The moment where everything that is not real falls away, leaving only what is true, what is necessary, what is deeply and undeniably mine. And so many things I used to care about so deeply and hold onto so tightly? They were never meant to be mine, or perhaps they were for a time… but not forever. I am so glad to know that now.

It has also softened me in ways I did not expect, even though I feel that I’ve always held a lot of femininity & softness throughout my lifetime. Now, there is a tenderness that runs DEEP. It’s hard to truly be upset with another human being or judge them to the core… because they are someone’s child. It’s this crazy feeling, but judgmental thoughts that used to fly through my mind or the frustration I used to feel with certain people, my heart breaks when I feel it because I think, no… they’re someone’s baby, and maybe they just didn’t get the level of loved they deserved/needed. That is mom life to the millionth degree. It’s very freeing.

I have watched myself become someone new, but I am also excited for all of the continued newness to come. I am only at the beginning of this specific evolution… my kids are still babies! I now see why people say that every decade older you turn ends up being the best decade yet, because as we grow and mature and age into ourselves, we know who we ARE. We hold a confidence and a strength that we just simply could not hold before we entered this brand new era.

The biggest, biggest thing is that I have learned to trust myself more than I trust outside voices. To listen to my own knowing. To let my intuition, always always, be my guide. Especially when it comes to decisions for my kids! Their little souls know, and we are tapped into them always, so we also know.

As they grow, I still grow. The version of me that mothers Attie & Delilah now is not the version who will mother them a year from now. She will know more. She will be stronger. She will have let go of even more of what does not serve her. I can’t freaking wait to meet her. She is so damn cool, I already know.

Motherhood does not just transform you once. It transforms you again and again. It is a continuous becoming.

This is the best stage of life yet, and I want to savor every moment. Moms, who feels me? Is this how you’ve felt about motherhood? If you haven’t entered this stage yet, is this something you anticipate? Tell me everything. XO