Finding your passion is life changing
Not "just" a mom.
I am more than a butt and booger wiper.
For the past 17 years I’ve been “just” a stay at home mom. I had an occasional job here and there but nothing of substance. When I was a little girl I used to say that I never wanted kids. I wanted to be an FBI agent and study the minds of criminals. I was going to have a high power job and be a boss. I was never going to have time for kids.
I graduated high school a year early and started college. I met my husband who was a submarine officer, who graduated from the Naval Academy. I had my first baby at age 23. Long story short, we moved from state to state with the Navy and four kids later, I found myself as a stay at home mom.
You see, during these last 17 years I have always been known as “Paityn’s mom”, “Guys wife“, “Lt. Glennon's wife”. I never finished college, which as you can imagine lead to very embarrassing conversations with high ranking officer wives in the military. “Oh where did you go to college, where do you work?” 9/10 I’d lie because I was ashamed to say I never finished college. I was “just a stay at home mom!” I would get pregnant and take a break from college. I ended up being a career college student.
I begin to feel restless, anxious and lost. I am now 40 and done with being “just a mom”. I finally started to chip away at what my true passions are. Who i am as a person. Finding my identity outside of someone’s wife and mother. It is a slow and tedious process. But I am learning more every day. I am figuring out what my purpose is. Taking back time for myself and my mental well being, my hobbies and I’m learning how to make an income while being a stay at home mom.
It is possible to have your cake AND eat it too. You can have your own identity and be so much more than “just a mom!” Check out my amazing community of moms in this group I created on facebook.
It’s time to start looking for Joy Triggers. Given what’s happening in today’s world I am starting to feel like I am surrounded by negativity and doom and gloom. Murder Hornets, that other thing that shall remain nameless. Masks, social distancing. Things I never thought we’d be dealing with in 2020. It is so easy to fall into a pattern of negativity.It is so so easy to slip into a pattern of pessimism. It’s like falling down a rabbit hole you can never get out. The first few days of quarantine I felt ok. As the days went on however, things became increasingly hard. I started to notice a trend on social media. Illness, social isolation, loneliness and an all around bad vibe. It felt like I was being swallowed up by a dark cloud.
Some of the most amazing chalk arts I saw
