There’s something overwhelmingly beautiful about becoming a mother, if that’s your what you want that is. Ever since I became a mom in 2023, my outlook on life and the verbiage surrounding motherhood that I’ve read online has changed.
I had my daughter in a season where I was still grieving and trying to find my footing again after a career change. It was a season where I was on auto-pilot and attempting to put myself back together. In many ways, I credit my daughter with “saving” me. The Lord knew I needed a life floatie to pull me out of this seemingly never-ending sea. She was that floatie.
However, the road to becoming and growing into the mother I’m called to be has proven to be the most unpredictable and difficult road I’ve ever travelled. Thankfully, I don’t have to traverse that road alone, but, it’s still one that I often thought I wasn’t ready for. I mean, I was a grieving late 20-something, still trying to figure out who she was in the world and how to work through that world without someone I lost who is dear to me.
How was I going to teach, nuture, and raise a whole ‘nother human in such a condition?
Something I’ve been noticing on social media has been the whole discourse around “getting your pink back” as a mom. This terminology refers to feeling more like “yourself” after having a baby or babies. I first saw this from creator Lindsey Gurk, who also has a brand called Get Your Pink Back. It uses imagery that includes a flamingo, whom can lose it’s bright pink color through the nesting and baby-raising stages due to hormones and such. I swear I’ve learned plenty about child-bearing through humans and animals the past couple years.
The process of “getting my pink back” hasn’t been easy nor a linear journey. In some ways, I’ve compared it to my journey through grief. It’s equally as emotionally taxing, it comes with its own host of ups and downs, changes in mental, and changes in every other way that has to happen in order to heal.
There are days where I feel like the Kayla (Deni to most of y’all,) that I once was and then there are days where postpartum still feels like it’s kicking me in the teeth and I don’t know who I am.
Although Babygirl is 1 now, 18 months to be exact, I don’t feel “all the way pink” again. I’m working on things that make me feel like myself again but, the biggest thing I’ve come to understand about postpartum life and motherhood in general is this:
We can’t go “back” to who we used to be before having kids.
So much changes with our mind, bodies, routines, relationships, and everything else to go “back.” The most important thing is going forward, how we are able to heal and work on ourselves to find a good balance between being ourselves and being “momma.”
As complex as this is, now that I’m a mom, I can say I have an even deeper appreciation for the other mom’s in my life from the time I was younger to now. Things aren’t easy when you’re balancing your own personal life, being a spouse/significant other, having a career, having a social life, and everything else in between.
While I can’t say I have my pink back yet, I will say that we need to stop rushing ourselves to do so. Flamingos don’t rush themselves or “demand” themselves to be bright pink again, they let it happen on it’s own. That’s what we need to do. We need to work on ourselves and work on just being the functional and beautiful mess that we are until that “pink” moment happens.
So, what is it I do that makes me feel “pink?”
- Cozy Gaming
I’ve been a gamer for a while now, from when I was a kid and fell off a bit but then got back to it. I played video games all while I was pregnant. I only stopped playing my more competitive games the later I got in my pregnancy. Now, “cozy” gaming looks different to each gamer. What I find comforting to me, may make you say, “whaaaat?” My favorite games right now are: Kingdom Hearts 3 (Xbox,) Apex Legends (Xbox,) Love and Deepspace (Mobile,) Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Switch,) Good Coffee Great Coffee (Mobile,) Papa’s Cluckeria (Mobile,) Cooking Fever (Mobile,) Bejeweled Classic (Mobile,) Fall Guys (Xbox,) Borderlands 3 & 4 (Xbox,) Vista Color (Mobile,) and Airplane Chefs (Mobile.) Sometimes I just enjoy being able to turn my mind off and play games for a while.
Y’all saw me mention Borderlands, Borderlands 4 has been living rent free in my head ever since it dropped. I will also say, most of my Mobile gaming is done on my iPad, I’m not about to push y’all to max out our phone memory on games (especially Love and Deepspace because that game just had a HUGE update.) I will say Love and Deepspace has been my newest obsession as of late and I have been loving the game, the community I’ve found of other girls who play, and the fan made art that has come from it. If you play, Sylus and Zayne are my two mains with Caleb, Rafayel, and Xavier falling in line in that order. However, nowadays, Caleb and Zayne are kinda used interchangeably between 2 and 3 in the list.
2. Reading (and listening)
I used to be such an avid reader. I can say also over the years my attention span has seemingly been shot. I don’t know how much of this is due to social media and how much of this is attributed to the hormones from pregnancy. One of my goals this year has been to get back into it and the easiest way for me has been getting into the world of audiobooks. I previously was very anti-audiobook because I love the feeling of a book in my hand and the thrill of buying physical books in-store. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m still buying books and I still have a stack that I need to either start or finish reading; but I’ve been enjoying the different level of immersion I’ve been afforded through listening to books as well. I got an Audible membership back in March and officially started picking out some titles. Right now, I’m listening to “I’m That Girl” by Jordan Chiles and “Lights Out” by Navessa Allen. I also love how Audible (a lot like the Apple Books) have a lot of free titles to read.
3. Beauty Maintenance & Makeup Therapy
I really stopped doing the things that always made me feel personally beautiful and happy, which ties into how I started as an influencer, and that’s beauty. I started the journey of being an influencer in 2014 with Influenster and Maybelline. Ever since teaching myself how to do my makeup through trial and error along with working with beauty brands, I grew to love it even more. Something I grew into loving was taking care of my “beauty maintenance.” I’ve always loved having my hair done, my nails done, and my face done up – it always made me feel “put together.” It’s something I’ve been working to get back to lately, as it makes me feel like myself. Understandbly though, if you know me, you know I used to rock pretty long coffin nails, I haven’t rocked those in a minute out of fear of scratching Babygirl. However, I’ve been experimenting with working my way back up to that. The way I’ve been doing this is wearing my collection of press-ons again from Salon Perfect. I’ve also started being under the care of a hairstylist who is helping me grow my hair from postpartum breakage and shedding. She also slays my mom’s braids and she’s awesome. She made me a bomb wig that I’ve been sporting while she takes care of my hair. If you’re looking for a bomb and professional hairstylist and hair care person, Jasmine is your girl. You can check her site out here. I’ve also been getting into doing “makeup therapy.” I’ve been doing my makeup just go to my den or just to sometimes take pictures in my house because it makes me feel good. I also use it sometimes as my time to do my journalling.
4. Audio Journalling (and journalling period)
I have always been a writer, this has never changed. Taking my time to journal throughout my day has helped me feel centered as a person and reminding me to get my feelings out on paper. However, sometimes, I’ve been doing it through audio. I’ve been using the journal app on my iPhone to do audio journals. Sometimes it feels good to get thoughts out if I don’t feel I have the time to sit down and collect my thoughts and then write. Sometimes I need to get those thoughts out even when they are messy and unorganized. Audio Journalling helps with that.
5. Devotional and Prayer
Realistically to many, this should be number one on the list right? But, I’m keeping it honest. Ever since I lost my grandma in 2022, I felt like my faith was “shaken” a bit. Not that I ever lost my faith or my relationship with God, but that I questioned “why God” a lot. I questioned why I had to lose her before I got married, before I had my baby, before I did all these things that I wanted her to see me do. Things that we talked about throughout my life that now I had to navigate without her and it felt so unfair. So many times I would breakdown in the closet of my fiancé’s and I’s apartment and just cry or in our office room questioning why now. And then I reminded myself, would there ever be a good time to lose her? The answer of course was no and it was never up to me anyway. But, throughout the years, I’ve been working on strengthening my relationship with God once more and reminding myself to trust in His timing although knowing that questioning is normal when you’ve endured lost and hardship.
6. Working on my novels (and short stories)
I’ve talked and worked on several novels for years. I’ve been toying with one since I was in high school. To the point where I had a written manuscript that consisted of fourteen chapters. I’m working on taking it more seriously and getting to the point where I can look at getting them published. When I’m not working on the novels, I sometimes like just getting lost in writing my short stories too. A lot of them tend to be fan fiction, so those may never see the light of day. But, maybe on AO3 someday. Who knows.
7. Cooking (and sharing)
I cook, A LOT. And I love it. Food has always been a love language for me, both in cooking and sharing meals. It’s one of the reasons I started sharing what I cook on my socials (mostly on Instagram.) My family always shared meals together growing up, I remember the week leading up to Easter baking pound cakes with my grandma, and looking forward to holidays in Mobile to have my maternal grandma’s Banana pudding and peach cobbler. I see it as even more sacred now, cooking always feels like I’m still doing something with my paternal grandma even though she’s not physically here with me anymore. I also love sharing recipes and meals with y’all so y’all can share in the joy of cooking. I’ve even had some of you reach out to me and tell me how y’all didn’t know certain things could be as easy to cook. Believe me, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to have a lot of love and patience included.
8. Connecting with my friends
We all live “crazy” lives. We stay busy and sometimes we don’t get to talk as much as we’d like. But, when I do get to FaceTime or have long talks with my besties, book club sisters, and other friends/previous classmates, I truly enjoy it. Sometimes I think we forget that even if we don’t get to talk everyday, doesn’t mean we don’t miss it or aren’t trying – life can just be lot sometimes.
9. Listening to my vinyls
I started collecting vinyls in 2020 (I believe.) My first was Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” and then I inherited New Edition’s self-titled album and my grandmother’s collection after she passed. There is something so beautiful about hearing the music you love on vinyl. My last three acquisitions have been The Weeknd’s ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow,” J. Cole’s “2014 Forest Hills Drive,” and SZA’s “Ctrl.”
10. Taking Care of My Health
Ever since right before finding out I was pregnant and even more over the past couple of months to year, I’ve been trying to do better at taking care of my health. Both of my grandmothers are/were diabetic, my mom’s diabetic, and I’m pre-diabetic. I also struggle with insulin resistance and am going to be looking to get tested for PCOS. There are things that I want to be able to reverse holistically through a better diet, exercise, and daily supplements. Since working on my diet and cutting a lot of fast food, getting back in the gym, boosting myself up with drinking more water, consistently taking my supplements, logging my food to track my calories, and focusing on getting more protein and fiber in my diet; I can definitely say I feel better. But, I still have a long way to go!
There are many ways to “regain your pink,” I think it’s all about accessing what makes you happy and taking the time to make room for those things. I thought this would be difficult at first, but even in small doses, it improves your mood and quality of life day-to-day. Most importantly, we have to learn to do better by taking care of ourselves and being patient with our progress.
I’m no expert in all things “momma” but I’m a momma working my way back to being a version of herself that honors herself a little more by being patient with myself each day. As long as we’re doing that, we’re getting somewhere.
I pray you all had a Mother’s Day worthy of the love and light you bring into the world. If the day was difficult for you, I pray you found some love and light in other ways to bring you some peace.
Links:
+ Lindsey Gurk’s Instagram | Brand IG
+ My Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Threads | Beacon | ShopMyShelf
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