I Love My Kids, But I Miss Me

This feels like something you’re not supposed to say out loud.

Because the moment you admit you miss yourself, it can sound like you’re ungrateful. Like you don’t love your children enough. Like motherhood isn’t enough for you.

But that isn’t true.

I love my children deeply. With a love that has reshaped my entire life, a love that has made me softer and stronger at the same time. And still, I miss myself.

I miss the woman who existed before my needs were constantly second.

Who could sit in silence without guilt.

Whose thoughts weren’t always interrupted by someone needing something from her.

Who could stay in bed when she was in pain.

Motherhood didn’t erase me overnight. It happened slowly… in the small ways, in the pauses, in the “later,” in choosing everyone else first so often that I stopped checking in with myself at all.

And no one warns you about that part.

They tell you motherhood is beautiful, and it is.

They tell you it’s hard, and it is.

But they don’t tell you how easy it is to lose touch with who you were while becoming who your children need.

Missing myself doesn’t mean I want my old life back. It means I want all of me here.

I don’t want to shrink into a role so fully that there’s no room left for desire, curiosity, creativity, or rest. I want my children to grow up watching a woman who is alive, not just responsible.

Some days, the guilt creeps in.

The voice that says,

“You should be satisfied.”

“You chose this.”

“Other women would be grateful.”

But I’m learning that gratitude and longing can coexist.

I can love my children fiercely and still acknowledge the parts of me that want attention too.

I can be a present mother without abandoning myself.

I can choose to reconnect instead of disappear.

Maybe missing yourself isn’t a failure.

Maybe it’s an invitation.

An invitation to listen.

To reclaim small pieces of yourself.

To stop apologizing for wanting more than survival.

I don’t need to become someone new.

I need to come home to who I already am, alongside the mother I’ve become.

And if you’ve been feeling this too, quietly, unsure where to put it,

You’re not wrong.

You’re not ungrateful.

You’re not alone.

You’re just remembering yourself.

I’m not arriving.

I’m becoming.

Anyway.

—Abi