At the beginning of this year, I started tracking several habits. These included:

• Going to the gym
• Getting 8K steps
• Reading
• Meditating
• Not shopping
• Socializing
• Not eating sweet treats
• Playing the piano

This list made sense for my life at the time. I was still very newly postpartum, with so much fresh anxiety about my health and recovery, and wanted to focus on exercise and eating well. I also wanted to get back to the habits that served me well pre-baby and took me out of “mom mode” for a bit, like talking to friends, reading books, playing piano.

I hate to harp on this point, but the postpartum period was difficult! I liked the idea of setting goals and tracking my progress toward them, but it also, on some days, became a point of stress, especially when I dwelled on the goals that I wasn’t checking off.
There was also some ambiguity in this list – if I bought groceries, did that count as “not shopping”? Did “socializing” only refer to in-person meetups, or was it OK if I just sent a reaction in the group chat?

After a few months, I re-evaluated my habits list and cut it down to the following:

• Gym and/or 8K steps
• Reading
• Meditating
• Playing the piano
• Writing

So far, this new list is going well! I’ve created new, positive habits based off of my desire to check them off, like ending my workouts with a meditation, listening to more audiobooks than I ever have before, and setting this daily summer writing challenge. Playing the piano has been the most difficult to fit in but most rewarding of the bunch; my long-term goal is to stay sharp enough that I can still play when my daughter is old enough to encourage her to learn on her own. That goal is still years away, but it doesn’t hurt to build a foundation now!

I apologize to anyone that’s had the displeasure of talking to me in the last 7.5 months. Unfortunately, my brain only has one track now, and that track is baby.

It’s understandable, right? People are excited to hear about her! What milestones is she reaching? How much sleep are you and Bryan getting these days? Is she eating real food yet? Is she crawling?

However, my brain is so hard wired to think about her that it often feels like I have literally nothing else going on in my life, and therefore, nothing else to talk to people about. Again, people seem very understanding about this – mom brain, right? – but I still can’t help but feel like a jerk when I forget a big trip or life event that someone else had mentioned in the past, or a story that they had already told me.

(This is especially difficult with those extra modest friends who always insist they don’t have anything big going on, oh don’t worry about me, what’s going on with you? etc etc)

Before having her, I knew that I wanted to prioritize having a full life outside of her. I could be capital-M Mom, but I could also have a career that I was proud of, an active social life, hobbies, an exercise routine, blah blah blah. I knew that it would be hard, but I only “knew” that hypothetically – I didn’t actually have the experience.

Now that I’m here, fuck, this is hard!

Surprisingly, maintaining a social life has been the hardest part for me so far. If I can bring her to a hangout, I spend half of the time doting on her and the other half talking about her, and if I can’t bring her, I spend half of the time thinking about her and hoping that whoever is taking care of her is doing it correctly. It’s nice to have her to talk about, especially with other parents, but she is all I can talk about these days. It feels like I have lost my ability to talk about anything but her.

She is a blessing, and this is a curse.

I hate that I don’t remember what’s happening with my friends. I hate that I’ve lost my curiosity for what’s happening in their lives. I hate forgetting people’s names! I hate that my schedule doesn’t revolve around me and my needs alone anymore. Perhaps most of all – I hate that all of these things makes me feel like a bad person!