For so long after I gave birth, I yearned for my old life. I wanted nothing to do with motherhood outside of being a mother. I didn’t want mom friends. I didn’t want to do mom things. I wanted to just be a mom and somehow still find space for the old me. I tried so hard and I think most of my depression was being sad that no matter how hard I tried, I just could not bring her back. I didn’t want motherhood to be my entire personality. I really thought it was the worst thing. I wanted to be a woman first and then a mom. Please don’t think I didn’t love my son, calm down. It’s just I’ve seen women who have allowed motherhood to consume them in such a way that they aren’t anything else but a mom. I spent 6 years trying to be the old me. I could not figure out why no matter what I did, I couldn’t be her. I lost the weight and I thought that having my old body back would heal me for real this time. It didn’t. It wasn’t the weight, it wasn’t the lifestyle. It was the missing grief. I could never ever be the Rossy I was before I had Christopher and until I allowed myself to grieve that part of me, I was never going to get better.
I spent the better parts of 2025 healing and grieving. Saying goodbye to who I was before I was a mother and inviting in the Rossy who was still cool af, but now she was a mother too. I had different feelings than everyone else. My non-mom friends didn’t understand what it was like to worry about everything. They didn’t understand feeling insecure because you have a belly that no matter how hard you tried would not go away because it was a direct cause of ab separation. They didn’t understand that I couldn’t just go out whenever I wanted to. They didn’t understand that I used to be someone else and now I’m just, not. They didn’t understand grieving parts of yourself. I didn’t understand it for some time either. I kept thinking that if i didn’t surround myself with moms, I didn’t have to be one when I went out. It sounds ridiculous if you’re reading this and you’re not a mom but if you are, you’re probably like damn, this girl gets it! I know… I’m a writer… I’m gonna say out loud what you can’t form into words. Anyways, let’s move on.
I decided to embrace motherhood for all it was. The unknown, the finding yourself. The sticky hands and greasy kisses. The snuggles from the snot faced little baby who thinks you are the coolest person in the world. I began going to mommy and me events, following more moms pages, really allowing myself to not see motherhood as the bad guy. I wasn’t going to be any less cool because I was a mom. Actually, I think I’m cooler now. I have tattoos, I’m a published author, I have a hot husband, a job I would’ve never had if I didn’t move to Charlotte to make a better life for my family… The old me, was not this cool. In fact I think she would look at current me and be like “damn I wanna be her when I grow up”.
I realized that I was not the only mom trying to not be a mom. Wait no like not in a neglectful way just in a “I don’t want being a mom to be the only thing I am. I want to be more” way. The only people who felt the same as me was… you guessed it… other moms. The same group of people I was trying to avoid is the only group of people who truly understood me. The sisterhood I was looking for only existed from other mothers. Who I could be outside of just a mom was someone I became when I started being around mothers. Motherhood needs sisterhood.
It is the loneliest I have ever been. Nobody understands it. The insecurities of your body changing. The exhaustion. The social anxiety. Motherhood feels like being the new kid at school, but at this school, everyone else is just like you, they just don’t want to be the first to say it. We all share the same thing, the same feelings. We have so much in common and yet feel so lonely.
I overcame depression, I lost the weight, I got on medication and still it felt like I was still missing something. When I got PPD, I got really bad social anxiety. I used to be the life of the party and I became someone who didn’t even want to go to the supermarket. I allowed myself a chance to show the world this new me. I went to an event and after my six year old’s pep talk in the car, I went inside. Everyone was so nice. I met so many moms who were just looking for a place to exist too. To know there are so many of us yet we all feel so lonely. That’s so weird. I hate that it’s like that.
Motherhood needs sisterhood. It’s clear to me now. You cannot navigate this life alone and the only people who understand are people who have gone thru the same thing as you. Your 26 year old coworker who can go out on a Wednesday night and get shit faced does not understand that you gotta be up at 730 cause your child has school in the morning. They don’t understand the peace that comes from sitting in the pick up line for an hour reading a book before the chaos. They don’t understand meeting another mom with diastasis recti and feeling normal in a world filled with bodies that look like the old you.
And this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t have friends who aren’t moms. I have a whole discord I’m in with girls who all we talk about is wrestling. Those are my girls! But what I’m saying is the parts of your life that make you feel the loneliest are the parts that someone else who’s going thru the same thing can fill. My discord girlies fill the parts of wrestling that I can’t talk to other people about cause nobody else would understand me. My mom friends help the world feel a little less lonely. They help things make sense. They remind me that it’s not just me and we’re all navigating this journey together. I struggled so hard to be the old me when the new me was just as likeable. I just needed to find the right people who would get it. I yearned for friends who understood but I kept avoiding the only group of people who truly got it. I embraced that now and I have friends, women who get it, women who cheer on the parts of me that are Christopher’s mom, while celebrating everything that I do in between.
A Collection of Wavy Essays 