My Identity Can't Be Found in a Mirror
Read Time: 4 Minutes
Words and image by Laura Frey
I catch sight of a thin wave of hair across my temple as I check my rear view mirror. Gosh that’s awful, I think, as I lean over to take a broader look at the whole shebang. The hair doesn’t make it to my pony tail and is kinked from tucking it behind my ear and sparse because its counterparts are still growing out after the horror that is postpartum hair loss. They are so Gollum-esque it’s haunting. I have to look away. My pale skin is sans makeup except for the mascara I threw on before we left for a mid-morning visit to my parents’. That sure didn’t help. My eyes look as dark and achy as they feel; weighed down by multiple night wakings and two early risers. If ‘yuck’ were an emotion, that’s precisely how I feel.
These trips are mental health excursions on bad days. On average days they have the possibility of turning relatively productive. In a flurry, I threw snacks into the bulging diaper bag on top of old outfits and a stale sleeves of crackers. At that point this morning, I still had hope that today was an average day and I’d swing into the grocery store on our way home.
But, as I round the lake curves before we reach town, I solidly decide we’re not going to pick up prunes at the store for the constipated baby in the back seat. That’ll have to wait. For my next shower. For a day when I put my cute snow boots on instead of muck boots. As if some cute shoe would counterbalance the mess up top. If I go in the store looking like this and only buy a jar of prunes there are just too many questions: How bad is it at home? Does she have one? Do they need more than prunes?
“I need my nails done. My hair curled. I need a day to do my whole face with all the makeup… and smell good,” I think. “Maybe dress up and go somewhere special.” I don’t even know what kind of place that would be anymore if you asked me in this moment, except that it would be somewhere other than this van. I want to feel like Me.
Instantly this litany of solutions feels as foreign as my current state. I don’t even like my nails painted. The first chip gives me anxiety. My eyes itch if I wear too much eye makeup. I like tranquil spaces and lazy afternoons, not a night out. My mind races in panic as I turn down our quiet street: I look a mess. When am I going to be able to shower so I can pick up prunes for that poor baby? Who am I these days?
I’m a 33 year old woman headed home to continue to look destitute in the name of motherhood.
The stark fall sun streams through the overhanging trees on this road. I’ve run miles and miles here and an ache billows in my chest for tennis shoes and this cool air on my face. The last time I ran alone was months ago. I love the twitch of hot muscles after a long run. The burn of the breath in my lungs the last mile before home and the mercifully cool shade of the oak tree once I get there. The buzz of freedom on a long run seeps into my veins with a prickly newness when I first step out the door and a heavy hum of peace when my foot lands back in my own driveway. This is Me, I think.
This thought gives me emotional momentum. I am Me when an unfolded pile of laundry and a crying baby don’t have the power to collapse me into a puddle of tears. This abyss of baby days is like a fog we drove through in Minneapolis once on vacation. We couldn’t see the gas station exit from the fuel pumps and almost didn’t make it back to the highway. I am not this fog. I am Me when I am clear headed and can see possibilities for miles. When a single cup of coffee clears the sleepy morning haze. When my thoughts link together easily and don’t all circle back to how to make the baby sleep better so I can sleep better. I am Me when the noose of exhaustion is loosened enough that creativity has space to release new ideas.
Me notices beauty; like the slanted light at 3PM in our living room or the smell of a stash of cinnamon candles as I open our linen closet. Not earth-shattering beauty. Rather, the homespun aesthetics of my everyday. Like a sponge, I notice, drink it in, and am fuller because of it. Me comes home with joy.
I pull in our driveway. The sun is bursting and as bright as I now feel clutching a new truth. The parts of Me I miss most are not parts I can see in a rearview mirror or parts some stranger can see in the baby food aisle at the grocery store. Me is not some shiny exterior, lacquered and gleaming. I won’t be Me when my hair finally grows back, or I smell good on the regular. No pedicure could bring me back to Me, and neither could finally wearing jeans again. Truthfully, jeans seem more attainable in this moment, but far less satisfying.
Me is the energy, the muscle, the ease of breath I move through my day with. It is an internal homeostasis, not a vision board. And the freedom in this realization is that I can make small steps toward returning to Me in the midst of external mess.
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About the Author:
Laura Frey is a wife and mother of two young boys. She stays home with those boys and is learning to nurture her creativity in the in between times. Her perfect day would include getting up with the sun, a good audiobook, a good run, and a good write.
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