Spring Cleaning My Identity and My Soul

I’m not a big fan of Spring cleaning, or any other cleaning for that matter. With three rapidly growing children, I already feel like I spend half my life changing out closets, digging through giant bins of hand-me-downs, and generally working to keep us from appearing on an episode of Hoarders: Elementary School Edition. I don’t need a special season devoted to this onerous task.

But this year the urge to purge my OWN things has been strong. As a result of what we will kindly refer to as my many life transitions, my walk-in closet now suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. Suits and blouses that have not seen daylight in 5 years hang dejectedly on one side, opposite a row of flowered sun dresses still holding a grudge that I moved them to Michigan from Hawaii’s sunny shores, with the two pairs of jeans I wear on a rotating basis and all my workout gear hanging out somewhere in between.

In my attempt to pare down the pairs of shoes and everything else crammed in there, I came across this skirt, and the gears which guide my normally instantaneous “Keep/Donate/Trash” decision came to a grinding halt.

I bought that skirt during one of my very last moments of being child-free. Forty-one and a half weeks pregnant with a baby who refused to come out, I had just gone in for yet another check-up, yet another hour of being hooked up to monitors, and yet another day of being told "Looks like Baby is just being a little bit stubborn!"

I remember not knowing whether to feel upset or overjoyed. Wasn’t I supposed to be counting the minutes until I could hold that precious baby in my arms? I was, for sure. Most of the time. Except for when I was mourning the impending loss of my previous life. Was that normal? I didn’t know, and I was afraid to ask, so I did the only logical thing: I went shopping.

At the time, my OB-GYN’s office was conveniently located in a bustling downtown area. I dragged my ginormous belly into a chic shop and waddled over to what I vaguely recalled my pre-pregnancy size to be. And there it was: the Mom Skirt. Comfortable yet stylish, slimming yet forgiving, it seemed to be calling my name. Chalk it up to the hormones, but somehow I thought this skirt would be the answer to all my problems. I envisioned effortlessly slipping into motherhood as easily as I could tug on that elastic waist. I pictured myself frolicking through fields of flowers with my future children in tow, Sound of Music style, my skirt twirling in the breeze.

So I bought it, and I packed it delicately in my hospital bag, right next to the gender-neutral, coming-home outfit I’d purchased for Baby. The one he peed on as we got ready to come home. He peed on my skirt, too.

Upon entering the house, I ripped off the skirt and searched my drawers in vain for something that would fit. But everything I owned was either too small, too big, too dry clean only, and just generally too non-Mom. As my new baby wailed in the background, I felt embarrassed at how naive I had been to think all I needed was a black skirt to pull this off. Being a mom would require more than a wardrobe- where was my script? My character? My motivation?

Late that night, I did my first child-related load of laundry, and I stuffed the black skirt and all the other garments outfits now laced with some form of DNA in the wash. As the machine filled with water, my eyes overflowed with tears.

I cried because I truly was so happy to have been granted this miracle, this blessing from God. I cried because the weight of that responsibility felt like it just might crush me. I cried for what I already knew and for the great tidal wave of the unknown I feared could pull me under at any moment. I cried because this was where I knew I belonged, and yet part of me wanted nothing more than to run away.

And as I watched that rumpled, dirty, black skirt go around and around, I cried because I wanted more than anything to go back to the morning before he was born, back to when the skirt and my role in the show called Motherhood were both still a clean slate. Back to when hope and joy were still packed neatly in my hospital bag and things weren’t quite so messy.

I held my sweet baby boy close that first night, and prayed for strength, for wisdom, and for peace. And by the grace of God, as the sun came up on us both it all felt a bit more manageable. I tucked the skirt, and many of my feelings, into the back of the closet and did my best to figure out how, and where, I fit into this new life.

Though I never really cared for its frumpy, neither-here-nor-there length, or its lack of originality, over the years I’ve pulled that black skirt out and worn it on more occasions than I’d like to admit, including two more trips home from the hospital (as I said: elastic waistband). Every time I see it, it brings me right back to the moment I bought it, and the first time I wore it. Expectations, reality, and redemption all sewn into one garment. And now, I think it’s time for it to go.

I wish I could say I was one of those women who simply slipped right into motherhood, but for me, it took some time to find my own style. Today, I’m the proud mom of three amazing children but I don’t divide my life into “before” and “after” kids. It all combines to make me who I am. Motherhood still fills me with the same sense of awe, joy, and fear that it did that first night, and I embrace it. It’s not a role I’m playing, and I don’t need a costume. It’s already stitched in the fabric of my soul.

Mona Shand is a freelance writer and a national correspondent for Public News Service. A former TV news reporter, she now blogs about family life at monashand.blogspot.com, join the conversation at Facebook, or follower her on Twitter.