Some days, I feel like I've 'lost myself' in new motherhood. But my baby helps me find her again.

Original photo by Nathalie Hennis

Some days, I feel very far away from the world. I wonder if the thing I have been denying for so long - that I will have to in some way give up my life to have children - is true: I cannot suddenly decide to move to a new city; or even move back into the centre of London. I cannot wake up tomorrow and be in the swing of what I was before. I don’t want to 'go back,' and yet it aches to know that I cannot.  

It feels far away. That person I was: the one who worked at the improv theatre,  performing five nights a week, going to bed at 2 and waking up at 10; or the person who was touring her shows, flying off to Miami or Australia or New York. That feels like a different me. And some days, I’m not sure how to be her again.

I feel like my younger chapter has closed, and that I don’t have that freedom of youth anymore, to start something new, or reinvent myself. To make a ‘comeback,’ or just pick up where I left off. I’m scared that at a certain point, it will become ‘embarrassing’ that I’m still doing the things I’m doing. I worry that as I look at a blank page, wondering how on earth to start something new - a situation that many an artist, or anyone self-employed, will understand. And I’m afraid that if I can’t, then maybe that’s it. It’s over. 

But then.

I see my baby be amazed by a set of jingly keys. I watch as she grabs a plastic play cup and pretend ‘drinks’ from it. She is so excited to have that cup in her hands, copying how her mummy drinks from her tea cup. I see her eyes change looking out of the kitchen window and I realise she is looking at the neighbours’ cat for the first time. Really looking. Discovering.

Imagine seeing a cat for the first time.

I have heard the cliché ‘seeing the world through the eyes of a child’ so many times and I’ve had a logical understanding of what it means. But it is emotional for me now. There is a magic in discovery. Everything is possible and exciting for my baby.

I think of making paper mâché back at school. How wonderful it was to build and paint and create. To experience how this world around you can be captured and its parts manipulated into making something new and unique to you. Art.

Everything is still possible for me. Logically, I know this. But I think my baby helps me remember.

Everything gets harder as you get older, they say. Or does it? Do we just get further from that magic of discovery? Do we stop believing and looking at things with the wonder of a pair of new eyes?

I love being a mother. I truly do. I understand what comes with it, and I know I can’t be exactly who I was before. But I think what I want to do, is figure out how to merge these two creatures - the me from before and the me who I am now. It’s not going to be a sudden flick of a switch. It will be small things. Writing again. Doing gigs. Learning how to juggle it all. Doing two comedy festivals this summer, whilst my husband takes his paternity leave and the reins for a while! Bringing my baby with me as I tour my new show. Sharing it with her. Going to bed much, much, much earlier than I used to! 

I’m a mum. And I’m still brave, adventurous Tamar. I am possible. I am discovering. And it is long days and tired brains and her chirping at me through the panels of her crib as I type this. 

But it is magic.

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My show Plus One is on at the Toronto Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.