Hi, My Name Is....

Raising a son and being a wife have been the best things to ever happen to me. I have gained monumentous responsibility, a little more wisdom about life, and a couple new titles. But those titles seem to be the only thing I am known for anymore. I know I'm not the only one with this problem. I know if you have kids and/or a husband you are going AMEN SISTER right about now. It's a part of life. I am to be known as Brody's mom and Beau's wife forever. But Amanda (that's me) is still in there too folks. And boy does she have a lot to say. I've always been what most people would refer to as a loud mouth. Not that I'm loud, but I don't let thoughts slosh around too long in the 'ol noggin before they come spilling out head over heels. The honest to god truth is though, I have lost myself a little bit in the madness of getting married (while I was three months pregnant, it wasn't a shotgun wedding so quiet your titters) and having a baby and my husband leaving and staying gone for the military and raising my son by myself. Hello, that's enough to give even the strongest of the estrogen community some gray hairs. I'm finally getting to the point where I have some sort of grasp on my own identity. It may feel like I lose grip and I'm free falling right back into nameless-hood, but the grip is getting stronger day by day. I sometimes think I am silly because even though my husband is gone A LOT, I still have one. He is my biggest cheerleader, if you can call an almost 200 pound brick shithouse a cheerleader, and he has supported me through everything and is so proud for all that I have accomplished at home while he's holding down the fort overseas. I say silly because I have plenty of friends who are single parents, and most of them have more than one kid and they rock it. I know they have their moments when it's just toooo much, but girlfriends got it goin on. I feel like I have it easy compared to a lot of the parents out there, and this realization is what gave me the extra little push to remind myself to take some ME time, and to remember my name without having to look at my driver's license for a prompt. That's why I started this blog. I use to be an avid writer in high school. I was always writing some new play or short story, and this lady always had something to say and I just stopped. This blog has become my second child. I'm building it a little bigger day by day, and each post I publish it's more liberating than a bra burning in the '60's. It is unbelievable to me how much I have realized about myself since I started writing again. It's like having an arm re-attached that I didn't know was missing until I tried to use it again. This has been about putting some things on the back burner for a little bit and letting my life go from a simmer to a full, rolling boil again. It's important to do that when you have bigger titles in your life like "mom" and "wife." If you don't recognize that there is a person in there that has bigger dreams than doing the dishes before it's time to change another diaper you start to forget who you were and what you wanted before you had kids. Things that shouldn't stop just because you are a parent. If you forget them, everything else will take over your life and you will be bitter and you will resent yourself and the people that share life with you. It might be something like this blog here, or a Friday night with just you, some margaritas, and the girls, but everybody needs that not-so-gentle kick in butt sometimes to get you going. This blog is my stepping stone into something bigger, and for that, I'm starting to say my own name a few more times a day than I did before. You know, the days that I can remember what it is anyway.