Tag Archive for: beautiful

This New Person

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About 8 months ago I met two new people. One teeny tiny one that relies on me for everything. And one slightly bigger person who I’ve spent my whole entire life trying to figure out.

Me.

It’s interesting how you spend all this time preparing your heart and your home for this little person, and yet you can’t quite prepare yourself for the other person you will meet at the exact same time: yourself as a parent, and for me, a mom.

It’s not a negative, the exact opposite in fact. I thoroughly enjoy getting to know myself better. The ebbs and flows of life and constant transitions, though difficult, are also exciting. When I look back over my life, I see a series of new people sewn in with the old person I was, and what a beautiful tapestry it makes.

Now enough with the poetic writer stuff. My apologies. I expect you want the vulnerable, knitty gritty out of me right? Okay, I’ll do my best.

Trying to find your new sense of self while also taking care for a teeny person 24/7…not easy. Where I used to have a variety of ways to escape or care for myself emotionally, I now am only left with a few, and usually I am too tired to really pursue those.

Self love has taken on a little bit of a different feel these days. A warm cup of coffee in the afternoon, a nap while she naps, a quick workout before she needs to be fed again. Everything feels a little bit rushed, with a baby waiting at the end of every activity. I must try so very hard to rest.

Well crap. Because resting has never been my strong suit. I’ve never been a good napper, mediator, lie around all day-er. Productive is the only thing that feels right to me. Hilariously, now I am a mom, so productive goes right out the window. A day where laundry gets done but the rest of the house is a wreck is a win. A shower every three days is a win. A blog post written on a weekday is a win. A few moments journaling about my hopes and dreams-MAJOR WIN.

When I take a step back, I am the same me I have always been, with just a few little changes. And I have to work hard to remember that when it feels as though my life is nothing like it was, that I am a totally different person, I am just me, with a baby. And maybe the seasons of my life look a little different, and I have to spend my “free time” more wisely than I once did. But maybe it’s a gift to be forced into intentionality. To be given a reason to fight against day to day melancholy as I play blocks on the floor for yet another hour.

I’m still in there. There’s just a teeny person clinging to my hip. And I would take one toothy grin over a weekend on stage, or a 5 mile run, or a full night of sleep. Those things will come again, but for now, this is my beautiful, messy, exhausting life. And I am the same Lizz living in it.

Photography by Lexi Fazzolari. Cover photo by Ashley Sider

Parenting-amazingly exhausting

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It’s like everything worthwhile in life. Beyond amazing, yet beyond exhausting. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, and yet I’d give anything for just one day to myself.

When I look back on my life so far I see this pattern. The things that are most worth it are the ones that stretch my every limit and leave me wondering, “can I do this?”. Author Shauna Niequist would call it the “bittersweet” of life. The real, raw, intense, excruciating is also the most beautiful, the most rewarding.

I love the bittersweet in life. I love the challenge and the uncertainty, the deep joy, and peace. But I also don’t. Because anyone who knows me knows that uncertainty when it comes to what’s next is NOT MY THING. I spend a lot of my time clinging to the illusion of control (working on it).

So God gave me Lilah Grace. The most beautiful little person I’ve ever set my eyes on. She is pure JOY. And yet she fights sleep like I’ve never seen. She won’t take a bottle. She knows exactly what she wants and my schedule is out the window. It makes me chuckle. There’s that bittersweet again. All the best things in life have it.

And if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m unbelievably exhausted both physically and emotionally. And I’m ridiculously happy. In the same day I’m texting Eric to “please for the love of god get home right away I’m going crazy” and sending him videos of our little lulu cooing away. I find it amazing that the two can go together even at all.

When I hit the bittersweets in life I always know I’m going to be learning and growing. Here’s to parenting, the most bittersweet thing I’ve ever done.