Can you ever slip back into your old self and be the 'you' from before you became a mum?

This article was originally published on Laurel Pantin’s Substack Your Mom. You can sign up to the newsletter here.

I recently found myself attempting to disconnect and remain in the moment on a week-long trip without my kids (our first ever!) but with our closest friends, many of whom we haven’t seen since before the pandemic, before we left NYC and moved to LA.

So how did it go? Was I able to stay off my phone and stay present? Was I able to slip back into my old skin, and be pre-babies Laurel? Inhabit a little of the old me magic that comes from not having a child on your lap or needing to worry about being too hungover to pour a bowl of cereal at 6am?

Yes and no.

I think – and this is just what I think, so I’ll talk about myself specifically and try not to speak in absolutes – but I think that what I thought of as the “old me” was a mixtape of my best qualities seen in the best light. It was an idealised version, not just of what my life was like, but of who I was. In my mind, pre-kids I was smart, sparkling, available. I was loose and totally carefree.

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But what I found when I was back with this group of people I’ve known for the better part of two decades, was that I’ve grown into being more of those things now than I ever was before. It’s like the thing where you go to your high school reunion and suddenly you’re 16 again and the girl with nowhere to sit at lunch. I could really easily feel myself slipping into my skin from 6-ish years ago, before I became “Mum”. And honestly, I’d rather be in this new skin, even if it isn’t as taut.

Maybe it’s a mum thing, maybe it’s an age thing, but the me I am now is better adjusted, more interesting, and happier than the me I was before. Which I’ve said before and will probably say again. Aside from the body falling apart thing, getting older is great.

But yeah, it felt wonderful to stay out until 3am again, laughing until you can’t breathe at something not appropriate for kids’ ears. To leave the house with just myself to worry about. And I’m not saying that I forgot about my kids, but after a few days, I stopped expecting them to pop up and ask me questions when I found a quiet moment, or bang on the door when I went to pee. I stopped looking around wondering where they were and who was supposed to be watching them. I worried about them, constantly at first, a bit in the middle, and not at all at the end of my trip. They were fine – thanks fully to my outstanding in-laws and our nanny – everything was fine.

So while I expected to be in a time warp to 2017-me, what I really found was that even though all the circumstances were right, and I was in the right headspace, that girl is lost to me. And the reality of her isn’t as shiny as I thought. When I really think about the cluelessness required to be so carefree, that’s not a place I’d like to return to. I’m good here. I’m lucky that the people I was with still fit, even if so much had changed for me since I last saw them that I wasn’t sure it all would. That was what I really missed, the feeling of being around so many people I loved without tiny voices trying to pull me away. Or the chance to slip away and spend an hour reading alone, only stopping because you realise how much you’d love a glass of wine and a snack.

I write so much, think so much, talk so much about being yourself and finding yourself, knowing yourself, and the more and more I do the more and more I’m finding the words to describe what all that growth feels like. It’s like holding a carrot in the palm of your hand, waiting for a rabbit to come take it. If you can hold the carrot (your idea of yourself) loosely, gently, the bunny will come. If you try and force it, if it’s not easy, it won’t happen. Said differently: by holding yourself, all the things you think you are and love and stand for, loosely, you can keep growing. More and more bunnies will come and the wonders will never cease. Try too hard to go back to return to the past, or push too hard to get somewhere new and you won’t go anywhere. I guess? You are with yourself all the time, you don’t have to find her, you just have to observe her and accept her and let her evolve.

It’s all really hard to see when you’re so laser-focused on someone else’s development, how much you’ve actually changed too. But even in the deepest depths of sleepless newborn life and elbow-deep in nappies, you’re still in there. It’s a blessing to get the space to be just the me I am now, with the person I chose to spend my life with, and not also be working or emailing or Instagramming; just observing the people we’ve turned into over the last five years. It’s the closest I can imagine coming to Zach Morris’ Freeze button. Stepping away, putting my phone down, and just taking a minute to observe how far I’ve come without thinking of where I’d like to go.

So yeah, I did and did not find my old self.

Laurel Pantin is an editor and writer based in Los Angeles who covers fashion, lifestyle, and culture. She has two newsletters Earl Earl, which covers shopping and fashion, and Your Mom, for her musings on parenting. You can also follow her on IG.

Feature Image: Image: Instagram/@laurelpantin.