not just another hat rack, my friend...

warning: this post is on the serious, long side. 

do you ever stalk yourself on the internet? like, sometimes look at your facebook profile like you're a stranger, and try to see it through their eyes? or google yourself? or look at your instagram feed and try to determine what other people see in you when they look at it? well, i have a confession. i do this. sometimes a lot. i don't know what this means about me-it probably means i'm a deep narcissist and really messed up and self involved and you should probably stop reading right now... or maybe it just means i'm normal? i don't know. i just know i do it, and it feels good to admit it.

having a blog adds a slighter deeper dimension to self stalking- it's not just quick glances at pictures or profiles, but almost a time capsule. my old posts capture where i was, who i was with, what i was thinking, and how i was experiencing life over a span of time. jackpot for self-stalking!

i had the best of intention to write the other night, but inadvertently got caught up in stalking myself ... i was working on a post about mice (ah, MICE! insert fist shake here) and wanted to remember what i had already written about my on-off again relationship with the furry little pests. so i found an old entry, and starting reading, and the next thing you know,  i'm too tired to move my fingers or craft a sentence, and i've spent all my writing time reading my own blog. and before i turned off my computer, i recognized this weird tingly feeling inside, deep in my heart and belly. i couldn't name it, but knew it was familiar... yet foreign. a few minutes later as i nestled into bed and closed my eyes, the name of the feelings flitted across my minds eye: nostalgia. missing. longing. 

i had sort of danced with these feelings a few days earlier, when i had attended a women's event at our church. it was a night of honest confessions, beginning connections, lots of pie and hot chocolate (what women's event is complete without chocolate?!). it was so easy: i had been asked to be a table host, which meant bring a pie and talk to girls. it had been so real: i spent the night meeting new women and talking to old friends. it had been so raw: i heard an amazing testimony of an old friend. and all these easy, real, raw-ness reminded of what it was like to connect -truly connect- with no intention or agenda other than to be the person across from you. i used to do this a lot, a few years ago: spend time with other women in my life, being real and honest and unexpecting. and they used to do this with me. i left this night with a full heart and a questioning mind: why can't i feel fed like this more often? again, i felt nostalgia, longing, missing. 

a few days after blog-stalking and hanging with church girls, with all these weird little feelings tucked inside my heart, i had a spontaneous heart to heart with a great friend over the phone. she, being such a good friend, is always so good at asking me where my heart is. i started talking- just spilling words out, not knowing the direction i was going. a few minutes in, she said, 'well, it sounds like you really cherish a place where you are just you, and not anybody else'. and while this sentence seems silly on the surface, it hit somewhere deep inside, really close to my hidden feelings of nostalgia and longing and missing. 

now don't get me wrong: i love my life.
so.
very
inexplicably.
much.
i am so blessed, literally beyond measure: i have the best husband in the world; i have an amazingly sweet and loving son (did i mention he's also adorable?); we have another baby coming to be ours in May; i have a job i love and get to do three days a week, and four other days a week i get to hang out with my family. i can't put into words how much i love my life- i'm not trying to brag, i'm just trying to find a small, tiny way to tell you how much i love what i have. 

but what i've come to realize in the past week or so is that so many of the areas of my life require a specific identity: wife, mother, professional, friend. mentor. daughter/sister. etc. etc. now, i realize this is common and everyone wears some variance of all these hats- some more, some less. my experience of wearing many hats is not unique to me, by any means. and the realization of the hat-wearing is not actually the challenge. the actual challenge is figuring out how these feelings of nostalgia, longing and missing fit into all these hats. it makes me question what am i missing? what am i longing and nostaglic for? 

me. 

in all the hats i wear, i can't identify one that has just MY name on it, nothing more. when i read my old blogs, i see a me that has no role, no hat, no expectation. a me that just shows up and thinks about life and experiences. when i go to the church event and spend time with women, i feel a me that is just showing up and has no expectation, no hat, no role: just wanting to show up and connect in a real, raw way that feeds me as ME, not me as a mom, not me as a wife, not me as a professional, not even me as a christian. 

i am longing, missing and nostalgic for the place in my life that is just me. no one needing, no one expecting, no one feeding into me, and no one i am feeding into. i had this place, this me, so well defined before. of course, it's easier to do when you're single and get to do life on your terms, not incorporating other people's terms. i'm not saying life is better single (because that ain't easy, amiright?!) and, i'm not saying i don't love my hats, because i do! i chose these roles, and i LOVE them. 

i think all i am saying is that i need to find a hat with my name on it. i need a space to just show up. and because i've had it, i know that hat is somewhere on this hat rack... i know it fills my heart and rejuvenates me and refreshes me for other areas of my life. and me space looks different, each day. some days it means gym time, some days it means going out with friends. some days, like today, it means telling the husband i'll be back in an hour and just going to the local coffeeshop with my computer and a half-caf latte and writing about whatever i want. 

i need a place where no one is tugging on me, physically or emotionally. where i can just show up and be who God has created me to be, and nothing more. i have been missing this in my soul, and i'm just realizing and putting a name to what this longing, missing nostalgia feeling is.  and i believe everyone needs this. i read so many blogs and books and devotionals directed towards women, trying to help them find a balance. and you know what they all have in common? not losing ourselves. not letting life turn us into a hat rack to hold all the roles we have to fulfill, but creating our own hat, labeled with our name only, and finding time to wear that hat and that hat alone. 

i've come to believe we are not going to find a perfect balance of family, self, gym time, healthy eating, going out and staying in, and dog walking. it's going to be a constant juggle, a constant rotation of hats and roles. my only words of advice (to myself mostly) are: don't forget to wear your own hat.