identity

I was talking with my best friend earlier in the week and she was telling me her weekend plans. It will be her wedding anniversary on Monday and she and her hubby are sneaking away for the weekend. She said they really needed some time to be themselves and not Mom and Dad. She has six children who keep her very busy and it will be a huge treat for her to get away for a couple of nights and just be herself and not Mommy.

It stuck a major chord with me.  Most folks have so many identities. They have a parental one, a work one, a historic one etc.  We are not always the same person and it is often the people we are with who define who we are.  This concept, for me, goes beyond the idea of 'role.'  Yes, when I am being the parent, I am filling the role of Mom, but I also feel something different inside, my identity slides into a different place. Sometimes this sliding and shifting is seamless, other days, it can be a more difficult transition.

Like on those days when I have to be the Mom and I just don't want to maintain that identity. I'd rather be the Liz I was in college, or the Liz I was before I was married, or the Liz I was after I was married but before we had children.

The book I'm reading, "The Girl who chased the Moon" has an identity plot thread weaving through it. Who we are, who we want to be, who people think we are, who our parents are provide the underpinnings for this novel.

Identity is malleable and thank goodness that it is. I may have to sneak away for a few hours and de-Mom myself and be Liz for a while.