I’m just back from my two-week staycation, during which I ate well, tried to exercise regularly, and dreamt a lot.
One night I dreamt that I was at a work meeting. We were in an outside space where everyone was chit-chatting. All of a sudden, I stood up and blurted out: “I’m fucking free! After two years, I’m finally by myself!” I was so deranged in the dream that our founding editor, Rob Wijnberg, left the table after hearing me swear.
It was clear to me even in the dream that when I said I was free, I was referring to being away from my son. But why was I so desperate to be free? After all, in real life, my husband looks after our son during the day, and I have a bunch of childfree work hours every day.
When I woke up, a question started roaming through my mind: since becoming a mother a year and a half ago, do I only feel free during my dreams?
Becoming a mother is a juggling act of identities. To my list of roles (a partner and lover to my husband, a friend to my closest people, a daughter to my parents, a sister to my brother, a writer to my readers, and so on), I’ve also become a mother to my child. But where am I among all these labels? I must confess there are days that I don’t know what to do when I’m not fulfilling one of these roles. Where is Irene? Who am I, deep down?
Reborn as a parent
While I was on my break, my colleague Lynn Berger wrote about two fascinating books that offer an insight into this issue of losing oneself in parenthood.
“My identity was no longer my own,” writ…