Day 1 Ride of Your Life

Todays photo...my Dream Board

Separation of Self and Motherhood

Today, I draw the line in the sand. It is time to stop mothering my children as much and start caring for myself more. I am really not sure what that will be like, or how it is even done, but I plan to figure it out. Perhaps by including you in my journey, I will be pushed into doing things that normally I might not do. Do not get me wrong, I am not washing my hands of mothering completely I am just stepping back a little. Both of my younger girls are in high school now and while they need me for rides, money and food, they are more independent and more interested in the life they are building, which is the way it is supposed to be. This is where my problem lies…without the hands on full out mothering that I do, what am I? How do I separate myself from what has been a full time job for the last 20 years and go part-time? Now what do I do?

Last week the girls and I signed up for a workshop through a wonderful group called A Beautiful Me. This is a non-profit group that works with young girls in our area to help them build self esteem and self confidence. While my girls are older than many of the girls attending, I thought it would be a great opportunity for them to learn to love who they are. I came to this conclusion when I realized that I did not like myself very much, so I would not be the best person to help them with this. At the very first meeting, they had everyone work on dream boards. This is where you find pictures of things you aspire to be or do and place them on your board so that you can focus on making the dreams come true. The hard part for me came when I realized that I do not have a lot of aspirations. I have spent so much of these last 27 years mothering my children and trying to be what they need, that I have let my wants and needs go. While this is typical mothering behavior and I should be happy, I found myself feeling disappointed.

So with that my new blog was born. It is time to separate myself from just mothering and step into my life. I need to stop making excuses and try a slice of life and for the next year I am planning to bring you along for the ride. So put on your seat belt and prepare for the ride of your life!