LOSE YOURSELF

When I was only a few weeks postpartum, I remember asking my mom—who seemed to have all the answers for me during those first few weeks—if she ever felt insecure as a mother. Unsure of herself. Unsure of what she was doing.

I asked the question fully expecting her to say, “Absolutely. I felt exactly how you do right now. You won’t always feel this way!”

Instead, she said, “No.”

Not exactly the answer I was looking for.

I started to wonder why, then, I felt this looming insecurity over every little decision I made.

A couple of weeks ago, I was rocking Estelle to sleep. It was around 6 p.m., and she was settled into the little catnap she takes around that time every day before going back to sleep around 7:30 for the night.

I sat there thinking about how all the talking heads on TikTok and all the wake-window experts had said the exact opposite.

“The last wake window should be the longest.”

“She shouldn’t sleep that close to bedtime.”

“Keep her awake.”

“Build sleep pressure.”

But my girl has always loved that little 5:30 nap.

Eventually, I stopped trying to fit Estelle into the routines of every momfluencer, and I let this rhythm settle beautifully into our days together.

I thought about how much energy I’d wasted wondering whether or not to let her sleep at that hour. Now I know, really, the best way to handle these situations is simpler: if the baby is tired, let her sleep. If the baby is hungry, feed her. And so on.

There are so many voices out there.

And there are so many hours early on spent rocking a baby, nursing a baby, nap-trapped underneath a baby, with nothing but a phone and enough time to listen to all of them.

So I did.

And it made me question nearly every next move I made with my baby.

And I don’t think a single one of the talking heads on social media has ever made me a better mother.

They only made me wonder why her baby was already sleeping through the night. How on earth was she making it to Pilates, taking care of her baby, AND going on a date with her husband? And how were they all so skinny already?!

For the first time, I think, mothers have constant access to thousands of other women seemingly doing it better than we are. Their magical babies sleep through the night, eat perfectly, nap independently, and never cry.

Because no one posts the tears at 2 a.m. when the baby is awake yet again.

Or the tiff they had with their husband.

Or the only two outfits they can actually fit into right now.

I think mothers used to go for a morning walk with their baby, do the laundry, and make dinner without having to know the hundreds of other ways other mothers did it seemingly better than them that day.

And sitting there rocking Estelle that evening, I realized:

It was never my incompetence making me so unsure.

It was always the noise from the little squares on my screen.

That noise can be so loud sometimes—so loud that you almost can’t hear it. So loud you almost miss it.

The still, small voice.

The yeses and the noes you feel in your body telling you, not the full roadmap to motherhood, but just the next right thing.

And somewhere in all of that noise, we’ve been sold a version of motherhood I don’t actually want to subscribe to.

A version that is constantly asking:

How quickly can you get your life back?

Get them sleeping on your schedule.

Get them to eat however is easiest for you.

Get them out of your bedroom.

Get your body back.

Get your routine back.

Get your career back.

Get your time back.

Get yourself back.

But I don’t want to spend my days trying to optimize this little love to fit into my old life. I want to spend them loving her.

And so, in a world full of people trying to sell you and compel you to get back to yourself, to feel like yourself again in motherhood, I want to offer you something completely different:

LOSE YOURSELF.

Lose yourself in service of the least (the littlest) of these.

Lose your sleep, so they always feel held.

Lose your career, so they know just how important they are.

Lose your body, so they always know it’s the safest place they can be.

Lose your routine.

Lose your time.

Lose your energy.

LOSE YOURSELF.

Because one day you will wake up, and the corners of their mouth will turn up when their eyes creak open to see your face next to theirs.

And you’ll go about your day like you used to, but different. Better.

You’ll do things you said you could never do, but you did because you had to. You’ll love more than you thought your heart could handle. You’ll be more patient than you imagined. You’ll start thinking of yourself, your needs, your wants, less.

And then one day you’ll look in the mirror and see it.

A familiar face.

A familiar tone.

A familiar love.

All of this losing yourself, and you thought you’d wake up one day, go to the right workout class, or the baby would sleep through the night, and you’d feel it—yourself again.

All of this, only to look in the mirror and realize the woman you were is gone and never coming back.

And you’ll wait for the grief to hit, but instead of longing for the person you were or the life you had, it will feel like a sacred relief.

Because you were never becoming more you. God was always making you more like Him.

And that familiar face you make when you are eaten up with love for the baby who smiles back at you now? You realize it’s the face you see when He’s looking at you.

And the tone you take on when you lovingly guide her away from the wrong and set her back on the right track? It’s familiar because you’ve heard it before.

And the love that’s unconditional and never changing? Well, you can give it so freely to that baby because you know it so intimately.

I am not learning a new kind of love. I’m learning to give the love I’ve been receiving all along.

So now, when I look in the mirror, when I search for traces of myself in the middle of the laundry and the diapers and the days that seem to run together, I try not to go looking for the woman I used to be.

And as I settle into the humility that motherhood asks of me, I hope to see less of the woman I was and more of the God, the Love, who has been holding us all along.

So consider this your invitation, sister:

LOSE YOURSELF.