Much like author Rachel Cusk writes in her memoir A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother, many parents name how they do not feel like themselves when they are with their kids and they do not feel like themselves when they are without them. I can relate: I both want to be with my children and to be without them consistently. 

I remember learning about the Lebanese artist Huguette Caland, who left her husband and her three children in Beirut in order to prioritize her creative wellness and freedom. I thought, how courageous and how cowardly. Being in this duality can send us into a world of self-judgment and self-doubt. So many parents are left constantly questioning themselves, asking, Am I normal?

I recall pushing my then 2½-year-old daughter on the swing, and another parent pushing alongside me asked, “Can you even imagine a time when you didn’t have this little one, when you weren’t a mother?”

She was implying that she couldn’t, which struck me because I have a mental file full of memory cards when “mother” wasn’t an identity I bore the responsibility of, and it’s a cherished Rolodex. 

I can see these moments in Technicolor, but there are times when I do not know where they belong: Do I hang them up like the section of my closet filled with clothes that no longer fit but may someday? Or do I give them away, letting them remain a part of my past but not my present or future? 

As a psychotherapist and group facilitator for nearly a decade, I sit with people struggling through transitions—starting a new job, getting married, having a child, breaking up, or moving to a new city. 

When we are in a change process, we typically focus on what is demanded of us now instead of paying attention to what we are leaving behind in order to embody this new role or way of being. But it’s actually orienting ourselves to the many small endings in our lives that allow us to live better with them.