I just recently had something very odd happen. It was one of those "Wow!" moments that I had previously never experienced and the impact of this experience was a lot deeper than I had initially given credit.
I ran into a fellow mom friend of mine that I had met at a Mommy's Group out here in Colorado. She and I became fast friends at the group and we bumped into each other after the fe-mini's dance class. Just to give you a little background for this story, in the beginning of our friendship we had one of those "small world" moments. We discussed where we were from--did the "Oh ya me too!" Then moved on to the "Where did you go to college?" which brought out her response of, "Oh ya? I had a really good friend who went there too." Which manifested into swimming speak and led to, "Oh really? She was an athlete there too!" and bam, 6 degrees of separation rears its head once again. Just when you think you can move to a new state and get totally lost in a bunch of people who will never know who you used to be you are shown just how foolish you are! Needless to say, I did a good bit of shit-disturbing, hell raising, boy chasing and just all around trouble making with this co-friend in college. We had lots of fun together and it was kind of cool that my new friend knew her. All this transpired oh about 3 years ago.
So fast forward to present day (if I haven't totally confused you already). We were doing the Mom catch-up..."How are the kids? The Hubby? How's life? Anything new?" when she tells me that she recently went back to California for a visit and spent some time with our co-friend. I responded, "Ohh how great! How is she doing?" Mom friend proceeded to say how well she was doing and how cute her little boy was etc. etc. Then she said, "Ya, she asked about you too. She said, 'So how is KatieKascht doing?'" Now being that my mom friend has only known me as a mom she was not familiar with my maiden name. Nor was she aware of the fact that when pronounced it sounds more like the name of a Johnnie Cash offspring but nonetheless she paused for a moment and asked our friend "Who's that?" and then finally got her bearings about herself as to who I was and resumed speak. Now all of this seems very trite, boring and unremarkable until we get to the place of her saying the name "KatieKascht" and my first gut response was: "Who is that?" as well! I was too embarrassed to admit this right then and there but this freaked me out! I heard the name, processed, couldn't draw it up. Processed again, nothing. Processed one more time...Ahhhh--ME! THAT is who she is talking about! Seriously? Should it take THIS long to get there? And should the first, natural response be that of confusion and non-familiarity? There must be cause for this...Have I eaten today? Check. How did I sleep last night? Well enough. Did I suffer a severe brain injury on the way over here? Not that I can recall...So, what the hell?
Am I so far removed from who I used to be that I have no conscious recollection of her? So different that it takes me a good 5 seconds to realize that I haven't ALWAYS been a mom of two kids and actually DID lead a life of opposition for quite some time? This lead me to do an inventory of sorts of pre-mom/post-mom personality traits and this is what I came up with:
Pre-Mama Post-Mama
1. Partied all the time Haven’t been to a party in almost a year
2. Drank constantly Was pregnant/breast feeding for 3 years
3. Slew of friends Can count them on one hand
4. Social butterfly Homely recluse
5. Loud & Obnoxious …this is still intact but solely for the kids'
benefit
6. Light Heavyweight @ 170lbs Featherweight @ 130lbs (odd!)
7. Read only when forced Read anything I get my hands on
(how backassed is THAT?)
8. Did laundry once a week Do laundry once a day
9. Washed dishes when all went missing Again, with the daily
10. “Sleeping” was a sport to me Sleeping: such a distant memory it hardly
hurts at all anymore
11. Lived on pancakes & peanut butter Eat from the food groups daily
12. Bedtime= at least Bedtime=
13. Waketime= Oddly, still the same
14. Naptime=always Naptime=You’re funny!
15. Fave pastime-Lounging by the ocean Fave Pastime-Pastime? What's this?
I’m confused.
16. Fave TV Show-Seinfeld Fave TV Show-TV is a waste of valuable
time
17. Fave Color-Baby Blue Fave Color-Sleep
18. IQ-130 IQ-105 (on a good day)
19. Cleaned when we had company Clean at any given opportunity
20. Knew EVERYTHING about kids Don’t know $h!t about kids
All this to say is, I am clearly not the person I used to be. But strangely I have abandoned her with blatant disregard. No funeral, no mourning, no bon voyage--just gone. Is this what all mom's go through? Is this a "symptom" or "side affect" of the condition that is becoming a parent? Or have I fallen prey to a classic pitfall of motherhood that no one ever tells you about? One of those dirty little secrets that people like to keep under wraps cuz no one told them just so they can snicker under their breath while they watch you go down in flames? Like the one about morning sickness. How the hell was I supposed to know that it could start at anytime and last ALL day and night? BITTER! Or is this one of those pieces of the puzzle that you don't get until after you have thrown the whole puzzle away because you just couldn't find it, only to find said piece under the couch one day and say "$h!t! This is the one I have been looking for all along...well, I threw the rest of it away. I guess this piece will go in the trash too." I feel like I have metaphorically "trashed" KatieKascht. She is a distant memory of my psyche known only in lore by those who claim to have been her cohorts. Without their existence she may not even live in the recesses. She is an enigma; a mirage so to speak. I guess my next question is, will she ever come back? Certainly not in the above pretenses, but in any form? I suppose this is a question for the ages. Only time will tell and I suppose the fun part about it all is that I can re-create Katie 4.0. Ditch the not-so-cute qualities and adapt some more admirable ones. Figure out what I really like as opposed to what I think I am supposed to like. Maybe I will go back to school and pick my own major this time versus letting my friends do it for me in the interest of remaining eligible for swimming. Novel concept. With that, of course, goes paying for my own education as well which would probably lead to higher class attendance, subject interest, material retention and subsequently GPA. Well, it looks like I have successfully mapped out the upgraded version of myself. I guess I've got some work to do! Even though I don't know who I am, I am intent on getting that figured out. Hope this gave you the time to assess the question, "Who are YOU?" Enjoy! :)
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