Sometimes you don’t know from what moment you stop being yourself to be what others secretly design for you. I am not referring to anyone in particular, it is a structure in general, what you learn in school, what you see on TV, the whisper of society, the weight of culture … and you adapt to everything that comes from outside and the voice that speaks inside is becoming silent.

After years of internal deafness and having hearing aids out … one does not know well, well, who he is. He believes, deep down, that something is wrong, that what he does and what he feels squeaks somewhere, but with the passage of time he has become disoriented.

Having a child, however, brings you back inside . You have to look at yourself because your children are a powerful mirror. Have you ever hallucinated listening to how your son says the same phrases? He even uses your fillers when speaking and sometimes puts your expressions on his face and gestures on his body.

There is that little boy showing you a part of who you are, not only what is seen, but also what is not seen, because children, pure emotion, capture our entire essence, even the one we want to cover and hide.
We are putting our best smile and your little one comes over and says “Why are you sad mom?”. But how did he find out! Nobody around you has found out, but your son has.

And so begins a fascinating path of personal growth. You try to reconnect with yourself why you want to be a good example, why you know that if you are lost it is possible that your children will be lost too. And if they get lost, how will you help them if you don’t even know how to find yourself?

For me it is one of the most fascinating things about motherhood, that possibility of looking inward again, of connecting with the girl we were and lost, of tracing the paths again, this time drawn from the inside out.

Obviously being a mother is not the only way to get to know yourself and grow, surely there are as many as there are people, but I do believe that it gives you an express ticket.

Motherhood is an ultra-fast journey into your gut because your children reflect part of who you are. They do it when they imitate us, when they tell us openly what they don’t like about us or what they love (and you know they are sincere because they are not yet corrupted by the culture of saying what they don’t think to look good). They do it when they show us our limits and teach us that these are far beyond what we believed (For example … did anyone think they could spend so little sleep? When they wake us up again and again, when they are sick and we are at night at candle or when we are simply there by their side, checking that they breathe …).

I personally still have a long way to go. In fact I think it never ends, there are always layers to break free to get to know each other fully. But being a mom has given me the opportunity to connect with many things and do without many other irrelevant things.

It will seem absurd to you … but being a mommy and in my thirties … I have dared for the first time in my life to abandon my blonde to put on a redhead, to wear some huge retro glasses-pasta that I would never have dared to wear, to say that not when I want to say no (although it costs me horrors and sometimes I go around a thousand times to simply say NO) and to open this little corner where, apart from showing you the things that we like to do to Terrícola and me, I also show you bits of who I am.

I continue to remove layers from the onion and I am happy that you are accompanying me on this path.