I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post. Perhaps that's because Lily will be 2 next week and she has every ounce of a 2 year old's energy level. I am truly exhausted when she goes to bed at 8-8:30pm. It's like a truck hit me most nights, which I'm thankful for because that means she's healthy and developing properly, keeping me on my toes!

On this, my second Mother's Day, I've been thinking about how I've changed as a person since becoming a mom, almost two years ago. Someone actually asked me that specific question last week and I've been thinking about an appropriate answer ever since. I just don't believe I articulated it well in my answer, which was this:

• I had to learn how to become self-less and put me last, which I've never truly had to do
• I have become less anxious about a lot of things, spending less time in my own head, and more anxious about others, like germs. Having a sick kid is way worse than I anticipated. 
• I have had to find my backbone and deal with confrontation in some situations, which I always avoided.
• I have become a lot more empathetic towards people in general. 
• I have cut friends out of my life that were too taxing. There's just no time for that shit now and I want Lily to have a role model for choosing good people in her life.
• I have become less judgmental in a lot of ways and more judgmental in some.
• I'm a lot stronger overall.
• I have a billion times more respect and love for my own mom.
• I have a greater respect for my body and what it's capable of.

Reading those thoughts back...there just isn't enough substance to those answers.
The truth is, everything has changed about me since becoming a mother. Everything. It isn't that I've lost myself in motherhood or that it has taken away my identity. It's actually that I have found myself, and continue to discover myself, throughout this journey. I have found out so much about myself that I didn't know or realize before. I have found who I want to be in the future for Lily and who I don't ever want to be.

Motherhood is so amazingly scary, so amazingly bad, so amazingly overwhelming, so amazingly wonderful, so amazingly tiring. Motherhood is so amazing.

Thank you, Lily Ocean, for making me a mother, a different person, a better person. You, my love, are my world.