Motherhood consumes your identity so much in the early days. You become a mother, clearly labelled with an endless stream of things to do to keep little humans alive and the show on the road and very little room for much else. It can be suffocating (like this photo!) and yet blissfully intoxicating at the same time.

Parenting is a crazy mixture of opposites; joyful but miserable, busy but lonely, energising but exhausting, fun but tough, fulfilling but emptying, it ricochets from one extreme to the other.

Passions or things that make US whole can fall by the wayside as time doesn't allow for much else.

Our littlest has now joined her big sisters at school and I am aware of the huge importance of beginning to claim a little of my own identity back again. This last month has felt quite overwhelming as I begin to shift into a slightly new space.

I am asking myself now, what do I love? What gives me joy and lights me up and seeing if I can sneak it into my life, guilt free (!) from time to time. I know I need it..

Anyone else left a part of them behind with the all consuming honour of being parents?

A reminder that we are all in this together and that you matter too, hugely!

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