I was driving to my regular hair-color appointment the other day when, out of nowhere, I thought, I really wish I’d rowed crew.
As I am wont to do, I immediately pictured what it would have been like at 19 or so, rowing silently down the river in the early dawn hours, à la The Skulls. Sweaty and exhausted, but in the most romanticized and dreamy way.
My baby in the backseat giggled, pulling me out of my reverie, and I couldn’t help but wonder: Why on earth am I dreaming about crew right now?
It’s true that many of the “things I wish I’d done” float through my head on a regular basis.
I wish I’d gone to Harvard or Yale or Oxford for university, really anything elite and established, with Gothic architecture and serious academia.
I wish I’d dated that one friend in college instead of repeatedly pushing him away because even though we weren’t forever, we would have been perfect for that phase of life.
I wish I’d pursued writing earlier, played college volleyball, studied abroad, and drunk less.
Realistically, I could have pursued some of those things. I simply didn’t.
Now, they’re the roads not taken. The ones that would have quite literally brought me to a very different version of myself, with a different career, different kids, a different level of day-to-day freedom, maybe even a version where I wasn’t a mom at all.
Read: I Thought Becoming an Executive Was the Goal. Then I Became a Mom
And even though I absolutely love the version of me I’ve arrived at, I miss the versions I daydream about, though I’ve never even met them. I’m proud of who I’ve become over the last twenty years, but sometimes it still feels like something is missing. I feel almost guilty admitting that amidst the unbelievable blessings of my life, but alas, it’s true.
Why do these specific Katherine-shaped ghosts still come back to me? Still haunt me?
What’s more, why am I so kind to them when I still carry so much judgment about the ways of younger me?
As a mom, I have far more empathy for 19-year-old me than I ever did in my 20s. I’m kinder to her, but I’m still angry at her, too. I can still see the incredible opportunities she could have had if she hadn’t been so sad. To be blunt, she was insecure and lost and drunk. The word squandered comes to mind.
There was so much potential then, and yet, she didn’t see it. With time, I’ve come to realize that perhaps she couldn’t.
She was an imperfect 19-year-old, and yet she competes against all the idealized versions of me I still dream of. Dreams that were never real, so they never fell short of my expectations as she did. I guess the real me was never going to measure up. It’s like I blame her for the doors that have closed to me today, even though she never wanted them opened to begin with.
Yet maybe the disappointment is more than believing I could have done more. Could have been more. Maybe it’s also realizing that I’ll never again have the particular freedom of being 19.
Physically, I’ll never row at dawn in a teenage body. I don’t know if I still have the heart or dedication to train so single-mindedly. The logistics of nursing and school drop-off and, heck, even grocery shopping, have pretty much put the kibosh on that dream. I had one shot to do it, and I didn’t take it.
In some ways, the idealized Rower Katherine is actually a part of who I am today. I am strong, dedicated to my workouts, and seriously committed to my physical health. I carried and birthed two beautiful babies, and I’m no longer that girl who ate to feel better and drank to fit in. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss having a body that felt like mine before two pregnancies in my late 30s.
I also write. It took me some time, various careers, and a seriously circuitous route to get here, but I can finally call writing my home. Still, I battle brain fog and mom brain, and I never have enough time. The time to be curious, to learn, and to improve. Some days I think I missed an invaluable window of improvement, one that has permanently capped my potential as a writer.
So maybe the fantasies aren’t about identities lost. Less regret, more recognition of the parts of my life that still feel unresolved. Unseen even to me on most days, but no less real.
They’re the parts that desperately want to come along as motherhood changes me. The parts that want a meaningful place in my future, not just the dreams of my past.
Honestly, that’s what I’m still struggling with. Three years into my motherhood journey, and I’m still trying to integrate it all. I’m still not sure I understand how the old me fits into the mold of mom, or even the full scope of how I’ve changed from being cracked wide open.
Read: Everyone Told Me My Body Would Change but No One Told Me My Identity Would
Maybe I’m still a bit undefined. Still looking for a way for all the versions of me to coexist in real life, not just in my daydreams.
So next time I’m driving between the errands of my life and Rower Katherine slips into the passenger seat beside me, I won’t immediately wonder why she’s there.
Instead, I’ll ask her, What do you need?
