Entering a "New World" as a New Person: Coming out of Pandemic Life as a Mom

As restrictions ease up and we start “reentering life”, I can’t help but feel more than a little uneasy. Yes, I am concerned about safety and my family’s health, but there has been more than that weighing on me. The past year has impacted everyone so differently and for me the global pandemic just happened to coincide with being pregnant with my son and becoming a mom. It has certainly been a year of massive change. Both of these life events I’m sure would have been catalysts to life changes, but together they have pushed me through an emotional journey and I’m coming out on the other side sort of a different person. That is what I am so nervous about. I am a different person than I was 14 months ago at the beginning of this and I am not sure I know how to be this person back out in the world. 


I won’t explain all of the evolution I’ve been through and revelations I’ve experienced as I have been alone with myself and my thoughts late at night uncomfortable from a pregnant belly or nursing a tired newborn. What specifically the changes are doesn’t matter. The key is that now, after 14 months of happily living with my new self, I have to take her out into the world and figure things out.


This transition is more challenging because we were very, very strict with our quarantine. I have not been into my office in over a year and I have not seen my friends in person since before anyone could even tell I was pregnant. I literally grew an entire life inside of me, birthed him, and he is now almost 8 months old. In that whole time I have rarely seen anyone outside of my family bubble. 


The weird thing is, the world was still going on around me while I was almost paused in this quarantine bubble. Protecting my baby was number one so I blocked out the rest of the world and here I am trying to reemerge and things are really different. But so am I.


My anxiety, I’m sure, stems from my lack of control of the world around me. Now that I am out of my bubble, anything seems to be fair game. My carefully calculated life is now open to scrutiny, error, and failure. I don’t have the same priorities, interests, or even fashion sense as I did a year ago. I’m more vulnerable than I have ever been as a new mom just trying to figure that out and figure me out. Our society is not kind to new moms (or moms in general!) and their changes are often seen as weakness instead of growth. I am taking that raw person and putting her out into almost a new world and what used to be default and comfortable is now just the opposite. 


My ultimate goal is that I am able to carry on a slower, more mindful pace of life and keep my protective bubble at least partially intact while exploring what, on the other side of the past 14 months, makes me, me. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this and I’m sure navigating this will be a journey in itself. 


xx