Kijan mwen te jwenn mwen nan matènite

Ou dwe tande li anpil fwa, tou: ki jan matènite/patènite/paran chanje pèspektiv lavi ou, how ‘me’ turns into ‘we’ and how you begin to look for your child’s face on a group photo before checking for yourself, how the life becomes ‘babycentric’ and ‘mothering’ becomes top priority job… I’m a mother of two, WL, and I believe it all could be true. But not for me. jis tankou sa a, motherhood changed me, but for some weird reason it hasn’t let me forget of myself. Quite opposite: I feel like I have only got to know myself after I became mother as well.

For long time I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Oke, I knew I wanted to have family, a husband and children, but not a clue about what else could I do in my life. I guess at some point I thought that being a wife and mother would be enough, but it was only after I got married and had my children that I realised I want more. It’s not that my family life was not giving me satisfaction – it was. And probably because of that I realised that I could do more and I wanted to do more. I wanted to write, to create, to share my thoughts and exchange opinions. I wanted to do more to become more.

Ironically, it was only after I have created the ’we’ that I realised who the ‘me’ was. Maybe it was because of my daughters? I feel inspired by them every day; I feel I want to be more than mummy for their sake; I feel like motherhood is what let me realise my dreams.

mwen konnen, children are lots of work: pou kwit manje, feeding, changing nappies etc… But I never feel like the duties of mother prevented me from doing something else, something more important. There are days, when I can’t wait for them to go to sleep so that I can sit and write, but then it’s something they said or did usually that got me thinking and inspired me to want to write about something.

Wi, there are things that are more difficult to do while you are a mother: you can’t go to cinema unless someone babysits for you, you can’t spend the day shopping, because children are getting bored in the malls, you can’t just stay in bed for half the day or get lazy in front of the TV, because they will not let you do it. And here is the best part: you realize that all these things are really unimportant or bad for you. And you learn what is important and good for you. You learn that there are things not necessarily considered ‘fun’ that can make you happy. Like giving bath to a baby or reading a story at bedtime…And once you discover that you can enjoy things other people might even consider boring, you start to find out about your other likes and dislikes, independently of what other people say. You get to know yourself better. That’s growing into happy ‘me’.

My young auntie who’s always been a very attached mother complained recently when her younger daughter, now a teenager, spent few nights with her paternal aunt in another city, that without her at home she has overslept and got late to work and couldn’t even get dinner ready on time. Her daughter was not there and the discipline of her life got a big shake… Because children do make you disciplined. They make you realize the value of time. And then it’s your choice – you can either whine on how the life of a mother is a dull, hectic routine of never-ending tasks and how you have no time to relax – or, you can embrace the discipline of children’s needs and prioritize what you do during the day. And it just so happens that if you choose to see things as good, they will be good for you.

I am now doing more good stuff than ever before in my life: I am studying at home, reading a lot, writing – all this while being a full-time mother, feeding my children all home-made good food including home-baked bread and finding time everyday to do some colouring together and read more than one story at the bedtime. WL, I feel I can do more than I ever had, but I have no time for wasting it or for procrastinating things. It took me a while to work it out, but then all the important lessons need to be learnt and practised over time.

My plans for the future? More children, InchAllah. Because I don’t think my duties would increase significantly, but I believe my happiness and the happiness for all the family members would increase significantly with new additions. I want to write a novel as well. And learn Arabic to read the Quran with understanding. InchAllah.

Pi maryaj

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