When will I be me again? Wait.. Who am I again?

Friday April 8th

Patrick and I managed to have a date night tonight. Yay you say? Sure. Our terrific friend Wendy kept the kids for us, and off we went. As we headed out the only thing we knew for sure is that we were kidless. We've been hunting for a Jeep so we drove through a couple of dealerships before that inevitable question arose, " where do you want to go?". To which my response was the usual, "wherever". As we approached all of the fine dining establishments along 31 in Greenwood, Patrick asks, "what is Carinos?" "Italian food" "how about that?" "sounds good".

This is quite typical of our date nights.

We settled on Carinos Italian; and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had eggplant parm & two glasses of sangria. Dinner was excellent, service was great, and I was feeling pretty good by the time we left. I did run into one problem as we were leaving though and learned a good lesson. Don't wear shoes you can barely walk in then have two drinks with dinner. The walk to the van was pretty amuzing.
So, what next? That about wraps up date night. We spent the rest of our child-free time driving around dealerships looking for the elusive Jeep that we both want so badly to no avail. We wrapped up our night picking up pullups at Walmart then got the kids and headed home.
This has been our typical date night for some time now. Thrilling huh?

I think we've both been kinda going through a phase lately trying to figure out who we are outside of being parents. I personally am longing for friend relationships that are not Internet based. I'm actually very shy, and past experiences with friends have really made it hard for me to be fully trusting with people. The last ten years of my life have been pretty centered on my kids, and I've lost who I am. Not that I really knew who I was before that.

 Having Missy when I was so young (and with such low self esteem at that time) never really allowed me to form my own identity. I was pretty much a reluctant follower. I had friends, but never really felt that I 'fit' in anywhere. I can't say that I've really had a good, close bff since elementary school. I see or hear about other women going out with 'the girls' and I feel a twinge of jealousy. 'Going out with the girls' for me is a Yahoo chat conference with Kacey, Wendy & Ammy all at once. Makes me feel a little pathetic at times. If asked to describe myself or my life, every answer would revolve around my kids in some way, shape or form except for being able to say that I like gardening.

Not that I'm complaining. I love my kids with every inch of my being and I'm so blessed to have them & be able to take care of them. I just went from being an insecure child myself to being a mom at the age of 20 and never really got to experience life on my own or figure out who I am.

Patrick and I came together already parents, he was & still is a very devoted father, and we have built our relationship together around the kids. We don't really know who 'we' would be without them yet. Most couples get to know each other, then have kids & build on what they had before. We know so much about each other, but it seems like we are very behind on knowing us.

I know that one day, the kids will be gone and we will have our time together, to get to know us. I'll have more time to myself to figure out who I am. I just have to wait another 15 years or so. But the way I see it, at 30, I still have another (hopefully) 50 years.. so whats 15 in the grand scheme of things?

In the meantime, I'm trying to learn to take advantage of little moments of solitude to clear my head & peice together who I might be.