Old and New Badge

What I know now...

• I have every aisle in our grocery store memorized. Tell me what you're looking for and I'll tell you where to find it.
• I know my 14-digit library card code by heart.
• I can recite Goodnight Moon, Barbie Pet Vet, Pinkalicious Pinkie Promise and numerous other great works of children's literature on command.
• Poop (as in human excrement) on your clothes or carpet? I can get it out.
• Need tips on birthing, breastfeeding, babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergartners? Got it.
• Menu planning, local kid hot spots, play date ideas, discipline? I have some pretty good insights.

Seriously, the list goes on and on and on. I'm not bragging. The amount of knowledge and level of organization/multi-tasking (playing a board game, breastfeeding, breaking up a fight) skills I've accumulated over the last six years are pretty astonishing. I would totally have been promoted at my job by now and be making more money.

But what surprises me is how much I belittle what I've learned and how I've grown.

What I used to know:

• Need a book at Barnes & Noble? I can direct you to it.
• Put together a news release, a speech, a story, a magazine about this, that or anything. No problem.
• Want sushi for dinner? OK. I can give you the details on every joint in town.
• Serial comma or no? Colon or semi-colon? AP style? I'm your girl.
• Oh, Governor Granholm is calling. Please hold while I take her call.

I spend a lot of my time focusing on "losing" who I once was instead of focusing on who I'm becoming. I say it all the time, "Look at me. Look around. Who am I?" I clean. I carpool. I care for our kids. What am I doing?

Why does it feel like what I'm doing now is insignificant? Unimportant? Trivial? What makes having a thorough understanding of Dante's nine levels of hell more valuable than getting all three kids undressed, dressed and showered for swim lessons with time to spare (a seriously bad-ass, sweat-inducing accomplishment if you ask me!)?

I guess I just don't want to think like this anymore.

What if I still am the girl who is capable of interviewing Gov. Granholm AND now in addition to her, I'm the girl capable of scrubbing the grout, washing the dog and getting dinner on the table in the last hour before Michael gets home?

Have I really lost the more valuable, educated, talented me? Or am I like a more enhanced version of me? Is it that different times of life require different parts of me to shine while others sit on the back burner for a bit? I'm not going to lie. I wish I could shelve some of my current tasks for some I've had in the past -- lunching at a deli downtown instead of in my kitchen, sitting in on a press conference instead of quick skimming the news on my phone before one of my kids asks to play it again.

But I'm trusting that ALL that I've learned up to this point in my life will not go to waste. Thoreau wrote, "Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit and resign yourself to the influences of each." Easier said than done. But definitely worth a try.

Lamenting over the loss of my "self" at a friend's house yesterday, she encouraged me to write. "You are a writer. That's who you are, what you love to do. It hasn't been lost." So, I thought I'd try to write something, anything each day for Lent. I'm mixing it up - a little old me and a little new me. Hopefully the combo is better than either one would be on its own.