Who am I?

I am at this crossroads, to an extent, in my life where the way things have been for awhile now are starting to change.

My youngest is heading to Kindergarten in two weeks and my house is going to get a lot quieter... if only for half the day. I have found Motherhood to be all consuming and I really am "Myself" in this role. The mothering instinct has come much more naturally than I ever expected and I truly love what I am doing, but it is exhausting and at the end of the day I find I don't have much energy for anything more than opening a can of Coke and flipping channels! It hasn't helped that my youngest just started sleeping through the night this spring... yup, right around the time he turned five!!! I fully understand why sleep deprivation is used as a means of torture.

I just celebrated my fourteenth wedding anniversary with my first (and hopefully last) husband. We were together for 3 years before we got married, so the majority of my adult life has been spent with him. My identity has naturally just become so intertwined with him, how could it not I guess, that Nicki the wife is just "Me". When you share your life with someone you make decisions together and choices that might not be ones you would have made if you were only thinking of yourself. You have to compromise and sacrifice sometimes or pick your battles. C'est la vie.

So that is Me and Myself, but if you take those two major roles away... Who Am I? With half of my (week)days opening up this fall when Tommy goes to Kindergarten, I hope to begin exploring that very question. What is the next chapter of my life going to bring... will I be able to find a way to put myself first.. at least occasionally?